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THE  GREAT  MENACE 


THE  GREAT  MENACE 

AMERICANISM  OR  BOLSHEVISM? 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 
1920 


COPYRIGHT,  1920, 
Br  DODD.  MEAD  AND  COMPANY,  INC. 


VAIL-BALLOU     COMPANY 
•  (••MAHTOM  AMD  HCW  TO«« 


DEDICATED 

IN  GRATEFUL  AFFECTION 
TO 

THE  THREE  COMPANIONS 
OF  MY  HOME: 

My  wife,  who  inspires  and  makes  it; 

Our  boys,  who  sometimes  return 

to  gladden  and  undo  it. 


2137105 


FOREWORD 

* 

This  book  has  been  written  in  the  belief 
that  it  will  help  in  an  immediate  nation- 
wide campaign  of  publicity  of  the  disaster 
facing  our  country  in  the  Great  Menace. 

The  greatest  peril  of  America  is  not 
ultra-radicalism,  but  indifference  to  it,  a 
listless  confidence  that  "it  can't  be  done." 
In  referring  to  the  present  active  policy 
for  "the  confiscation  of  private  property, 
the  assassination  of  public  officers,  the 
burning  of  army  barracks  and  police  sta- 
tions, the  over-turn  of  the  United  States 
Government, ' '  the  New  York  Times 1 
makes  this  pertinent  comment,  "How  much 
effect  does  this  have  on  the  'ordinary 
American  citizen?'  It  is  nonsense.  'They 
can't  do  it?'  Well,  there  are  a  good  many 
of  these  offensive  people  in  the  United 
States;  and  they  are  not  conscious  that 
they  can't  do  it.  ...  They  are  endowed 

i  Editorial,  Nov.  11,  1919,  p.  12. 
vii 


viii  FOKEWORD 

for  their  work  of  massacre  and  ruin  by 
wealthy  half-baked  Americans.  ...  As 
solid  American  citizens,  innocently  believ- 
ing that  what  has  been  will  continue  to  be, 
...  we  are  inclined  to  grin  tolerantly  at 
the  program,  the  energetic,  fanatical,  and 
ferocious  program,  of  world-revolution  of 
Russian  adopters  of  Marxism." 

The  American  Lumberman,  in  calling 
attention  to  the  Great  Menace  that  imperils 
our  country  and  that  * '  many  are  consoling 
themselves  with  the  thought  that  the  good 
sense  of  the  average  citizen  will  prevail 
and  that  this  danger  will  pass  without  any 
effort  on  our  part,"  declares  that  " THESE 

CITIZENS  NEED  TO  BE  AWAKENED  FROM  THIS 
SORT  OF  LETHARGY,"  AND  SHOCKED  "OUT  OF 
ANY  FALSE  SENSE  OF  SECURITY. ' '  2 

Hundreds  of  American  newspapers  and 
magazines  could  be  quoted,  citing  facts 
which  show  that  "outside  of  Russia  the 
storm-centre  of  Bolshevism  is  in  the 
United  States,"  3  and  that  Americans  must 
" awaken  to  the  danger,"  and  overthrow  it 
or  be  overthrown  by  it. 

2  Issue  of  Oct.  18,  1919. 

s  Literary  Digest,  Nov.  8,  1919,  p.  15. 


FOREWORD  ix 

When  the  American  people  are  truly 
aware  of  the  extent  of  the  work  of  the 
Great  Menace  and  of  its  real  intent,  they 
will  most  surely  do  what  needs  to  be  done, 
thoroughly  and  without  delay.  The  imme- 
diate need,  therefore,  is  publicity :  to  make 
the  facts  known,  and  to  make  known  also 
certain  things  which  the  new  age  decrees 
must  be  done  for  the  preservation  of  de- 
mocracy and  our  home  country  with  its 
sacred  institutions.  To  that  work  this 
book  is  given. 

GEORGE  WHITEFIELD  MEAD. 

January,  1920. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PACK 

FOREWORD  .    vii 


I    THE  GREAT  MENACE 


II    THE  RELATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE,  LABOR,  AND 

CAPITAL  IN  THE  IMPENDING  REVOLUTION    48 

III  CONDITIONS   FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM   THAT 

Do  NOT  RIGHT  THEMSELVES;  AND  REA- 
SONS FOR  FAITH  IN  THE  PEOPLE   ...     67 

IV  THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM 101 

V    VITAL  MESSAGES  OF  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY  .  129 

APPENDIX 

A  CITIZEN'S  WORKING  CREED  .  .  155 


THE  GREAT  MENACE 


THE  GREAT  MENACE 


THE   GREAT   MENACE 

DURING  the  war  our  country  was  united 
by  a  common  task  and  a  common  danger. 
Now  that  the  war  is  over,  a  thousand 
problems  have  arisen,  diverting  attention. 
The  way  of  readjustment  to  peace  con- 
ditions is  strewn  with  the  debris  of  war. 
The  great  effort  that  is  being  made  to 
clinch  the  momentous  moral  gains  ef- 
fected is  facing  abnormalities  and  per- 
plexities. 

The  "new  age"  is  one  of  unrest  and  un- 
certainties. The  air  is  electric  with 
change.  Human  society  is  in  the  throes 
of  gropings  and  assertions,  which  are  par- 
ticularly noticeable  with  "capital"  and 
"labor."  However,  their  interests  are 
not  inimical.  Controlled  by  reason  and 
conscience,  they  will  find  a  way  out  for 

conserving  their  common  good  and  the  in- 
i 


2  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

violable  rights  of  society.  The  danger  of 
to-day  lies  deeper  than  their  differences. 
What  is  the  Great  Menace? 

The  Great  Menace  is  a  subtle  deter- 
mined movement  for  the  complete  over- 
throw of  the  present  social  order  and  its 
sacred  institutions,  including  the  Church, 
and  for  the  creation  of  an  ''industrial  re- 
public ' '  through  the  ' '  conquest  of  the  state 
and  the  powers  of  government."  The 
class  aiming  to  bring  this  to  pass  and  put 
themselves  at  the  top,  whose  motive  is  not 
justice,  but  to  rule,  now  lifts  its  hand  not 
alone  against  capital  but  against  every- 
one who  is  not  of  the  industrial  labor 
class.  Their  aim  is  to  confiscate  all  prop- 
erty, all  lands,  level  all  classes  (not  by 
lifting  up  but  by  pulling  down),  and  to 
subordinate  all  classes,  including  the 
agricultural-labor  class,  to  their  own 
regime. 

The  Great  Menace  in  the  United  States 
appears  under  different  names  and  in  dif- 
ferent forms,  often  in  masquerade. 
Sometimes  it  works  openly;  again,  by 
stealth  worms  its  way  into  groups  and 
organizations  of  men  for  the  winning  of 


THE  GREAT  MENACE  3 

converts  and  subversion  of  the  group  or 
organization  to  the  socialistic-bolshevist 
program. 

The  Great  Menace  is  popularly  typified 
by  the  names  of  socialism,  sovietism, 
syndicalism,  communism,  and  bolshevism. 
Sometimes  the  ism  is  presented  in  osten- 
sible popular  lectures  from  Lyceum  plat- 
forms and  popular  assemblies,  with  veiled 
attempt  to  sow  seed  of  dissension  and  in- 
doctrinate an  unsuspecting  people.  The 
extent  of  that  sort  of  propaganda  is  as- 
toundingly  large,  eluding  measure. 

The  Great  Menace  is  now  making  ef- 
fort, through  taking  advantage  of  trying 
conditions  incident  to  the  close  of  a  great 
war,  to  sow  the  seed  of  unrest  and  effect 
radical  revolutionary  changes;  in  other 
words,  to  effect  conditions  in  America 
similar  to  those  that  prevail  under  Bol- 
shevist rule  in  Eussia.  I  have  chosen  the 
words  of  this  statement  with  care,  and 
shall  cite  facts  which  bear  their  own 
amazing  disclosure  of  the  Great  Menace 
in  America. 

The  Bolshevist  government  in  Russia  has 
accomplished  this:  the  confiscation  of 


4  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

property  and  the  socialization  of  society, 
including  the  overthrow  of  sacred  institu- 
tions and  the  invasion  of  the  sanctity  of 
the  family.  Divorce  is  granted  for  the 
mere  registering  of  intent  of  separation, 
with  no  limit  on  the  number  of  times  that 
one  can  be  married  and  divorced. 

Have  the  people  of  Russia  benefitted 
under  sovietism?  The  radicals  declared 
that  the  socialization  of  industry  and  na- 
tionalization of  natural  resources  would, 
through  giving  a  personal  interest  in 
things  produced,  bring  to  pass  a  type  of 
efficiency  impossible  under  the  old  order, 
resulting  in  increased  output  and  adding 
to  the  sum  of  national  wealth,  and  that  this 
larger  prosperity  would  benefit  all  the  peo- 
ple and  particularly  improve  the  condition 
of  those  who  are  engaged  in  productive 
pursuits.  Such  gains,  socialists  have  de- 
clared, would  accrue  to  any  nation  under 
the  socialistic  program. 

The  trial  given  to  socialization  in 
Europe,  however,  has  resulted  in  the  op- 
posite of  things  promised.  Such  is  the  re- 
cent testimony  of  Mr.  Herbert  Hoover,  who 
had  opportunity  to  personally  study  the 


THE  GEEAT  MENACE  5 

working  and  economic  effect  of  radical 
forces  in  Russia,  in  Hungary,  and  in  Ger- 
many,— the  effect  being  "fatal  to  the  hopes 
of  sincere  Socialists."  The  socialization 
regime  has  resulted  in  appalling  loss  of 
production;  and  in  Hungary  and  Eussia, 
where  the  plan  has  had  full  sway,  has  re- 
duced both  countries  to  a  starvation  basis. 
Eussia  under  the  monarchy  was  able  to 
produce  and  export  more  surplus  food- 
stuffs than  the  United  States,  but  now  after 
approximately  two  years  under  the  social- 
ization system  is  in  a  state  of  economic 
collapse.  Two-thirds  of  the  railways  and 
three-fourths  of  the  rolling  stock  are  out 
of  operation.  "The  population  is  without 
normal  comforts  and  is  plunged  into  the 
most  grievous  famine  of  centuries.  Its 
people  are  dying  at  the  rate  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  monthly  from  starvation  and 
disease.  Its  capital  city  has  diminished  in 
population  from  2,000,000  to  less  than 
600,000.  The  streets  of  every  city  and  vil- 
lage have  run  with  the  blood  of  execu- 
tions." Continuing,  Mr.  Hoover  said, 
"My  conclusion  is  that  socialism,  as  a 
philosophy  of  human  application,  has  al- 


6  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

ready  bankrupted  itself.  It  has  proved 
itself,  with  rivers  of  blood  and  suffering, 
to  be  an  economic  and  spiritual  fallacy. 
I  believe  it  was  necessary  for  the  world  to 
have  this  demonstration.  But  it  is  not  nec- 
essary that  we  of  the  United  States,  now 
that  we  have  witnessed  these  results, 
plunge  our  own  population  into  these  mis- 
eries and  into  a  laboratory  for  experiment 
in  foreign  social  diseases. ' ' 1 

The  hostility  of  the  Bolshevist  govern- 
ment to  the  Christian  religion  is  summar- 
ized by  the  following  excerpts  from  the  re- 
port of  the  United  States  Senate  Judiciary 
Committee  on  Bolshevism: 

"It  has  confiscated  all  church  prop- 
erty, real  and  personal. 

"It  has  established  the  right  of  anti- 
religious  propaganda  as  a  constitution- 
ally recognized  institution. 

"It  has  supprest  Sunday-schools  and 
has  expressly  forbidden  the  teaching  of 
all  religious  doctrines  in  public,  either 
in  schools  or  in  educational  institutions 
of  any  kind. 

i  Address  to  American  Institute  of  Mining  and  Metal- 
lurgical Engineers  in  New  York,  Sept.  16,  1919. 


THE  GREAT  MENACE  7 

"It  prohibits  religion  from  being 
taught  or  studied  except  in  private. 

"It  has  abolished  all  recognition  of  a 
supreme  being  in  governmental  and 
judicial  oaths. 

1  'It  has  disfranchised  expressly  all 
clergy  and  servants  and  employees  of 
church  bodies  and  has  deprived  them  of 
all  right  to  hold  public  positions. 

"  Under  the  old  imperialistic  regime 
— sinner  that  it  was — it  became  the  prac- 
tice by  both  custom  and  decree  that  every 
newspaper  and  every  periodical  pub- 
lished on  Easter  Sunday  throughout  the 
Eussian  Empire  carried  the  commemora- 
tive head-line,  'Christ  is  Risen.'  On 
Easter  Sunday  of  1918  the  Bolshevist 
publications  substituted  the  legend: 

'  *  *  One  hundred  years  ago  to-day  Karl 
Marx  was  born.'  " 

Must  we  not  conclude,  with  the  Senate 
Judiciary  Committee,  that  "Bolshevism 
and  the  Christian  religion  cannot  both  sur- 
vive"? 

An  examination  of  the  Committee's  re- 
port, says  the  Minneapolis  Tribune,  will 
convince  the  American  Christian  that ; 


8  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

"  Russian  Bolshevism  triumphant  in 
this  country  would  be  followed  by  the 
confiscation  of  203,432  church  edifices; 
by  the  suppression  of  all  denominational 
Sunday-schools,     seminaries,    and    col- 
leges ;  and  by  atheist  dictatorship  domi- 
nation over  41,926,854  church  members." 
Such   is   the    sweep   of   the    socialistic- 
bolshevist   program.     Do   we   want   it   in 
America?     That   very    program   we    will 
have,  and  have  soon,  if  we  close  our  ears 
to  the  knocking  at  the  gate.     The  Great 
Menace  must  be  met.    The  crisis  promises 
to  strain  vour  country's  strongest  institu- 
tions, to  test  our  faith,  and  to  try  the  hero- 
ism of  bravest  and  noblest  souls. 

Is  the  present  order  of  society  to  be  su- 
perseded by  one  of  class  rule?  Are  reli- 
gious institutions  to  cease  to  be?  Must 
their  work  suffer  eclipse? 

Nothing  is  easier  than  to  dismiss  such 
questions  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulder. 
That  is  possible;  it  is  also  possible  "to  live 
in  a  fool's  paradise," — that  too  when  the 
world  is  on  fire.  Surely,  the  way  to  over- 
come dangers  is  not  to  close  our  eyes  to 
them,  but  to  face  them  in  their  full 


THE  GREAT  MENACE  9 

strength,  and  try  to  remedy  what  is  wrong. 

What  attitude  will  the  Church  take  to- 
ward the  Great  Menace?  I  do  not  believe 
it  the  function  of  the  Church  to  preach 
economics  or  to  mix  politics  and  religion. 
But,  surely,  no  one  will  deny  that  the 
Church  must  have  to  do  with  the  relation 
of  religion  to  society;  that  its  work  is  to 
save  the  world,  not  mere-individuals  out 
of  the  world. 

Kaleidoscopic  changes  have  been  faced 
by  the  great  denominational  bodies  that 
have  sought  to  adapt  their  work  to  the 
needs  of  the  post-war  times  and  in  har- 
mony with  the  new  sentiment,  assuming 
ministries  of  amazing  magnitude  for  the 
succor  of  a  suffering  world.  Now  all  loyal 
Americans  must  face  conditions  as  they 
are.  We  cannot  turn  back.  We  must  go 
forward,  or  go  under. 

We  appreciate  the  momentous  words  of 
Clemenceau,  spoken  a  few  days  after  the 
Armistice  was  signed  to  a  group  of  French 
senators.  ' ( Gentlemen, "  said  Clemen- 
ceau, "our  difficult  time  is  just  approach- 
ing. It  is  harder  to  win  peace  than  to  win 
war. ' ' 


10          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

We  share  the  vision  of  Milton: 

"Peace  hath  her  victories 
No  less  renowned  than  war ;  new  foes  arise, 
Threatening  tobind  our  souls  with  secular  chains. ' ' 

In  the  Great  Menace  we  have  to  do  with 
subtle,  hidden  forces  and  powers.  It  is  a 
challenge  to  the  continuance  of  every 
sacred  institution. 

As  we  trace  the  evidences  of  the  Great 
Menace  in  America,  let  us  keep  in  mind 
that  its  purpose  is  the  confiscation  of  prop- 
erty, the  socialization  of  society,  and  the 
subjugation  of  agricultural  and  all  other 
classes  to  a  group  of  the  industrial  class; 
and  that  its  avowed  step  for  accomplishing 
such  end  is  to  do  away  with  all  public 
teaching  or  study  of  religion. 

From  the  National  Socialist  party, 
through  their  convention  in  Chicago,  Sep- 
tember, 1919,  comes  definite  word  as  to  its 
spirit  and  purpose.  It  declared  the  party 
in  full  harmony  with  the  revolutionary 
working  class  parties  of  all  countries  and 
stands  by  the  principles  stated  by  the  third 
international  program  adopted  at  Moscow, 
Russia.  Other  planks  in  the  platform 
read: 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          11 

"We  fully  recognize  the  crying  need 
for  an  immediate  change  in  the  social 
system.  The  time  for  parleying  and 
compromise  has  passed  and  now  it  is 
only  a  question  whether  the  full  power 
remains  in  the  hands  of  the  capitalist  or 
the  working  class. 

"The  Communist  Labor  party  of 
America  has  as  its  ultimate  aim  the 
overthrow  of  the  present  system  of  pro- 
duction, in  which  the  working  class  is 
mercilessly  exploited,  and  the  creation 
of  an  industrial  republic,  wherein  the 
machinery  of  production  shall  be  social- 
ized so  as  to  guarantee  to  the  workers 
the  full  social  value  of  their  toil. 

"To  this  end  we  ask  the  workers  to 
unite  with  the  Communist  Labor  party 
of  America  industrially  and  politically 
in  the  struggle  for  the  conquest  of  the 
state  and  the  powers  of  government  in 
the  establishment  of  a  cooperative  com- 
monwealth. * ' 

A  more  radical  program,  which  with 
other  incendiary  literature  was  recently 
seized  by  our  Department  of  Justice,  is  the 
manifesto  of  the  Federation  of  Unions  of 


12          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

Russian  Workers  of  the  United  States  and 
Canada,  which  Attorney  General  Garvan 
characterizes  as  ' '  the  most  dangerous  piece 
of  propaganda  ever  disseminated  by  any 
organization  in  the  United  States. ' '  Some 
of  the  things  advocated  are : 

Capture  of  all  products  and  means  of 
production.  Liberation  of  all  political 
prisoners.  The  blowing  up  of  all  barracks. 
The  murder  of  law-enforcing  officials.  The 
burning  of  public  records.  Destruction  of 
fences  and  all  property  lines.  The  de- 
struction of  all  instruments  of  indebted- 
ness. 

An  accompanying  plan  that  has  been  un- 
covered is  the  inciting  of  United  States 
sailors  to  mutiny,  the  placing  of  officers  in 
irons,  and  the  delivery  of  ships  to  the  So- 
viet government  of  Russia. 

The  work  of  the  Great  Menace  is  far  out- 
side the  bounds  of  such  methods,  and  in 
sinister  ways.  The  daring  and  subtle  strat- 
egy of  the  exponents  of  a  "socialistic  or- 
der" is  illustrated  by  their  cloaked  attempt 
within  the  councils  of  the  recent  Atlantic 
City  convention  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor.  Colonel  Theodore  W.  Mc- 
Cullough,  an  eminent  member  of  that  or- 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          13 

ganization,  in  a  review  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  convention,  said:  "The  labor 
unions  [at  this  convention]  were  sought 
out  by  propagandists,  coming  with  the  al- 
lurements of  a  new  world  into  which  the 
workers  would  be  moved  by  their  own  voli- 
tion. All  that  was  required  to  establish 
the  industrial  millennium  in  America  was 
for  the  men  and  women  in  the  workshops 
and  factories,  mines  and  mills,  offices  and 
elsewhere,  to  follow  the  example  of  the 
workers  of  Russia  and  be  free.  .  .  .  Bol- 
shevism was  presented  in  many  guises,  in 
the  resolutions  submitted,  ranging  from  a 
proposal  embodying  the  'one  big  union' 
idea  to  another  that  had  for  its  object  the 
changing  of  the  date  for  Labor  Day  from 
September  1  to  May  1.  It  was  a  little  sig- 
nificant that  in  all  these  resolutions,  where 
it  was  essential  to  name  a  date  for  future 
action,  May  1  was  chosen.  When  the  time 
came  to  decide  on  the  policy,  an  emphatic 
negative  was  registered  to  each  of  the  sev- 
eral resolutions  >on  which  the  radicals  had 
pinned  their  hopes.  .  .  .  So,  if  the  labor  un- 
ions of  the  United  States  turned  a  deaf  ear 
to  the  agitators,  to  the  'parlor  coal  dig- 


14          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

gers,'  the  half-baked  reformers  in  what- 
ever guise  they  came,  it  was  .  .  .  because 
their  common  sense  and  deeper  under- 
standing of  the  problem  led  them  to  decline 
to  take  part  in  any  movement  to  wreck  the 
institutions  of  our  government  by  under- 
taking to  substitute  any  sort  of  experiment 
for  the  true  democracy  under  which  they 
exist."  1 

It  is  fortunate  for  our  country  that  the 
Atlantic  City  convention  of  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  had  delegates  in 
majority  who  could  not  be  tricked,  who 
could  recognize  effort  "to  foment  revolu- 
tion," and  who  were  determined  that  "or- 
ganized labor  of  America  shall  go  on 
along  its  evolutionary  course."  But  in 
the  short  time  since  that  convention,  large 
bodies  of  labor,  ignoring  the  counsel  of 
their  own  leaders,  have  caused  serious  in- 
dustrial troubles. 

That  the  socialist-bolshevist  advocates 
adroitly  planned  and  worked  with  energy 
within  the  Atlantic  City  convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  repre- 
senting more  than  three  millions  of  Ameri- 

i  New  Era  Magazine,  September,  1919,  pp.  498  ff. 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          15 

can  citizens,  and  that  similar  propagand- 
ists have  with  the  zeal  of  religious  mania 
carried  their  teaching  into  other  organiza- 
tions and  into  every  possible  nook  and 
corner  of  our  land,  evinces  that,  however 
mistaken  their  philosophy,  it  is  an  organi- 
zation of  determination  and  subtle  methods 
that  to  ignore  would  be  fatal. 

Mr.  W.  E.  Robinson,  in  a  recent  com- 
munication to  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Agriculture,  tersely  presented  his  judg- 
ment of  this  revolutionary  social  force  as 
follows:  "I  want  to  say  with  all  frank- 
ness that  unless  you  take  immediate  steps 
to  curb  this  socialistic  tendency  which  is 
now  becoming  so  bold,  I  would  not  be  sur- 
prised if  this  country,  in  the  near  future, 
were  attacked  just  as  Russia  was  attacked. 
Remember,  these  men  who  are  Bolshevists 
are  not  all  of  the  ignorant  class;  many  of 
them,  indeed,  are  rather  able  men,  but  their 
aim  is  Socialism.  They  believe  that  no 
one  man  should  have  more  than  another; 
that  all  should  fare  alike;  and  in  order  to 
do  this,  it  will  be  necessary  to  upset  our 
Government,  overthrow  our  institutions, 
destroy  our  great  manufacturing  interests, 


16          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

confiscate  lands,  and  permit  the  Bolshe- 
vists to  go  rampant." 

Those  are  not  the  words  of  an  alarmist, 
but  of  a  sane  and  discerning  man  of  af- 
fairs, who  is  able  to  measure  tendencies 
and  movements,  and  who  has  the  good  of 
humankind  in  thought  and  heart.  And 
facts,  appalling  facts,  bear  out  the  correct- 
ness of  his  judgment. 

As  emphatic  a  warning  comes  from  a 
spokesman  of  the  "laboring  classes," 
Mr.  John  H.  Ferguson,  President  of  the 
Baltimore  Federation  of  Labor,  which 
has  about  40,000  members.  In  a  recent 
address  l  on  the  industrial  and  economic 
situation  America  is  facing,  Mr.  Ferguson 
referred  to  the  newcomers  of  America, 
"blinded  by  the  glare  of  liberty,"  daring 
to  aspire,  although  blinded,  "to  force  their 
guidance  upon  Americans  who  for  genera- 
tions have  walked  in  the  light  of  liberty. ' ' 
Mr.  Ferguson  then  spoke  a  warning  that 
ought  to  awaken  the  most  apathetic: 
"When  you  once  leave  the  level  road  of 
Americanism  to  set  foot  upon  the  incline 
of  socialism,  it  is  no  longer  in  your  power 

i  August  31,  1919. 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          17 

to  determine  where  you  will  stop.  ...  If 
you  tolerate  grave  infringement  upon  any 
of  these  elements  [of  the  established  order 
of  civilization]  all  history  shows  that  you 
will  have  laid  open  to  assault  the  founda- 
tions of  personal  liberty,  of  orderly  pro- 
cesses of  Government,  of  justice  and  toler- 
ance, as  well  as  the  institution  of  marriage, 
the  sanctity  of  the  home  and  the  principles 
and  practices  of  religion. 

"I  have  said  all  this,"  continued  this 
spokesman  for  labor,  "  because  I  know 
and  you  know  that  f  omenters  of  unrest  are 
abroad  in  the  land.  The  tragedy  which 
threatens  to  overwhelm  this  nation  pro- 
ceeds in  regular  fashion.  Gradually,  but 
definitely,  is  unfolded  the  plot  to  bring 
misery  upon  the  people  in  the  expectation 
that  misery  may  advance  revolution  and 
exalt  the  demagogues  who  would  become 
autocrats.  There  has  been  the  battle  of 
phrases,  the  avalanche  of  promises  and  the 
sapping  of  moral  fiber.  To-day  there  is 
the  game  of  tactics  between  the  revolution- 
ists, who  desire  to  control  the  American 
labor  movement,  and  the  conservatives, 
who  would  save  it.  To-morrow  one  may 


18          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

confidently  anticipate  the  outbreak.  Cir- 
cumstances follow  each  other  with  the 
regularity,  though  not  the  harmony,  of  a 
musical  cadence.  There  has  been  prepa- 
ration, now  there  is  percussion,  and  to-mor- 
row there  will  be  revolution,  and  revolution 
that  may  involve  dissolution  of  the  United 
States." 

Many  parts  of  our  country  have  recently 
witnessed  disturbances  that  had  all  the 
symptoms  of  the  Oreat  Menace:  strikes 
without  notice  and  without  instruction  or 
counsel  with  labor  leaders;  bomb  throw- 
ing on  May  Day  and  June  2, 1919 ;  attempts 
to  hold  radical  demonstrations;,. and  the 
appearing  of  a  "miners'  army."  When 
the  miners'  army  spontaneously  organ- 
ized in  West  Virginia,  Governor  Cornwell 
said  that  mysterious  radical  influence  had 
been  working  in  that  part  of  the  State. 
Added  to  this,  is  the  crime  of  the  I.  W.  W. 
in  deliberately  shooting  and  killing,  from 
their  Headquarters  in  Centralia,  Washing- 
ton, four  American  soldiers  in  uniform, 
veterans  of  the  World  War,  when  in  an 
Armistice  Day  parade. 

The  great  Northwest  has  been  a  center 


THE  GEEAT  MENACE          19 

of  virulent  radicalism.  In  Idaho  can  be 
seen  miles  upon  miles  of  blackened  area, 
where  forest  fires  destroyed  more  than 
2,000,000  feet  of  magnificent  timber,  val- 
ued at  approximately  $6,000,000, — timber 
sorely  needed  for  the  building  of  homes, 
farm  out-buildings,  and  manufacturing. 
For  this  wanton  destruction,  the  "  direct 
action"  preaching  of  the  Industrial  Work- 
ers of  the  World  is  held  responsible. 
Within  the  past  year  thirty-two  lumber 
camps,  with  their  surrounding  stands  of 
timber,  have  suffered  the  same  fate  due  to 
the  same  causes.  That  is  the  kind  of  sab- 
otage the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World 
agitator  preaches  as  a  means  of  attaining 
his  ends.  "The  forests  in  Northern  Idaho 
were  fired  because  the  lumberjacks  were 
not  satisfied  with  what  they  were  getting 
and  so  gave  ear  to  the  apostles  of  'direct 
action.'  To  counteract  this  the  big  lumber 
companies  tried  a  new  experiment.  They 
let  out  the  cutting  of  timber  to  small 
groups  of  lumberjacks,  calling  themselves 
'jippos,'  or  small  contractors,  three  men 
working  in  a  team,  and  agreed  to  pay  them 
so  much  a  thousand  feet  of  timber  they 


20          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

cut.  In  this  way  the  lumber  jacks  have 
been  able  to  make  individually  from  $10  to 
$25  a  day,  and  yet  they  are  not  altogether 
satisfied.  There  is  a  complaint  that  the 
hours  are  too  long. ' ' * 

In  view  of  the  shortage  and  high  cost  of 
timber  and  coal,  possibly  the  public  can 
learn  to  do  without  houses  and  to  keep 
warm  by  fireless  cookers. 

Shortly  after  the  race  riots  in  Washing- 
ton and  Chicago  belief  was  expressed  in 
the  House  of  Representatives  that  the  I. 
W.  W.  were  using  propaganda  to  inflame 
the  negroes.  That  belief  is  now  confirmed 
by  incendiary  propaganda  in  the  hands  of 
the  Department  of  Justice.  Referring  to 
the  seized  literature  which  had  been  spread 
to  inflame  the  negroes,  Ralph  Bevin  Smith 
made  this  comment :  *  *  If  the  I.  W.  W.,  the 
American  Federated  Commune  Soviets 
and  similar  radical  organizations  have 
their  way  the  end  lies  in  the  Bolshevizing 
of  the  American  negro.  Taking  advantage 
of  every  atrocity  ascribed  to  black  or 
white,  of  every  outbreak  of  race  hatred, 
the  Bolshevist  in  this  country  is  doing  his 

i  S.  M.  Reynolds,  Spokane,  Wash.,  Staff  Correspondent, 
Baltimore  Sun,  September  14,  1919. 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          21 

utmost  by  word  of  mouth  and  by  written 
propaganda  to  obtain  control  of  the  negro 
workingman  and  to  incite  him  to  join  with 
the  outlaws  among  white  workers  to  plunge 
the  United  States  in  the  throes  of  a  dis- 
astrous social  revolution.  If  Bolshevism 
succeeds  in  making  a  tool  of  the  American 
negro  workingman  a  new  issue  will  be  in- 
jected among  the  complications  of  the  na- 
tion's problem,  the  peril  of  which  cannot 
be  exaggerated. ' ' 1 

Following  is  an  excerpt  from  the  Am- 
erican Anarchist  Federated  Commune 
Soviets  "to  you  workers  of  America,  col- 
ored or  white:"  "By  our  united  strength 
we,  the  workers  of  all  colors  and  creeds, 
shall  start  the  real  worth-while  war 
for  the  overthrow  of  the  entire  capitalist 
system  and  the  taking  over  of  all  the  in- 
dustries, farms  and  warehouses  of  the 
country,  whereby  we  will  produce  for  our- 
selves, and  where  each  one  will  have  what 
he  needs  without  having  to  hunt  or  kill  one 
another  in  order  to  get  a  'job.'  If  blood 
will  have  to  be  spilled  in  order  to  enable 
us  to  accomplish  this,  then  let  it  never 

i  New  York  Herald,  Oct.  12,  1919,  p.  5. 


22          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

again  be  the  blood  shed  by  worker  against 
workers,  but  let  it  be  the  blood  of  capital- 
ism, its  government,  church  and  press,  that 
will  attempt  to  prevent  us,  the  workers, 
from  freeing  ourselves  of  the  present  slav- 
ery and  our  retaking  of  all  the  wealth  we 
have  produced  and  been  robbed  of.  If  bat- 
tles must  be  fought,  if  riots  must  take 
place,  if  blood  must  be  shed  in  order  to  de- 
stroy the  present  slavery,  then  let  us  do  it 
and  by  our  united  strength  start  the  real 
war — the  social  revolution. ' ' l 

The  success  of  inflammatory  propaganda 
in  influencing  negroes  is  suggested  by  the 
Messenger,  which  calls  itself  "the  only 
radical  negro  magazine  in  America. "  The 
July  number  of  the  Messenger  was  ex- 
cluded from  the  mails  by  the  Postmaster 
General.  Its  editorials  contained  such 
statements  as  this :  ' '  The  agencies  of  law 
and  order  and  justice  are,  to  the  negro, 
agencies  of  lawlessness,  disorder  and  in- 
justice. The  flag  for  which  he  fought 
mocks  and  deserts  him  while  his  life  and 
property  are  taken  away.  The  press  and 
church  are  stirred  more  by  Bolshevism  in 

ilbid. 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          23 

Russia  than  by  anarchism  and  murder  in 
Tennessee." 

During  the  war  America  was  proud  of 
the  black  man's  loyalty.  Greater  is  the 
treason  that  "red"  agencies  in  our  country 
have  tried  to  implant  rancor  and  hatred 
in  the  minds  of  negroes  and  incite  them  to 
violence. 

Other  facts  evince  the  activity  of  radi- 
cals for  the  overthrow  of  governmental  in- 
stitutions. Report  from  Washington  re- 
cently declared  that  there  are  thousands  of 
aliens  now  in  this  country  agitating  for  the 
confiscation  of  property  and  the  overthrow 
of  the  American  system  of  constitutional 
government;  and  that  these  agitators  are 
supported  by  many  of  the  3000  newspapers 
published  in  foreign  languages  and  cir- 
culated in  the  great  centers  of  industry.1 

Attorney  General  Charles  D.  Newton  in 
a  recent  statement  made  public  that  an 
American,  Daniel  De  Leon,  was  the  first  to 
advocate  the  establishment  of  the  Soviet 
councils  which  have  written  the  recent  his- 
tory of  Russia  "in  the  blood  of  innocents." 
In  speaking  of  the  New  York  State  Legisla- 

i  See  New  York  Times,  Oct.  17,  1919. 


24          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

tive  Committee  Investigating  Bolshevism, 
Mr.  Newton  said,  "As  further  proof  that 
the  Soviet  plan  is  of  American  conception, 
I  might  point  out  that  a  majority  of  the 
active  workers  aligned  with  Leon  Trotsky, 
the  Bolshevist  dictator  of  Russia,  were  ed- 
ucated in  radicalism  in  the  slums  of  Bos- 
ton, on  the  east  side  of  New  York,  in  the 
slums  of  Chicago,  and  the  dregs  of  other 
large  American  cities.  Documents  seized 
by  the  committee 's  investigators  bear  out 
this  startling  and  lamentable  fact.  The 
New  York  State  Legislative  Committee 
discovered  a  direct  connection  between  the 
Bolshevists  in  Russia  and  the  radicals  in 
the  United  States.  This  connection  was 
maintained  by  Ludwig  C.  A.  K.  Martens, 
'envoy'  of  the  Bolsheviki,  who  opened  an 
office  in  New  York  which  the  newspapers 
were  accustomed  to  style  the  'Bolshevist 
embassy. '  "  * 

In  the  United  States  Senate  Oct.  13, 
Senator  Poindexter  gave  warning  that 
there  is  "real  danger  that  the  Government 
will  fall"  if  it  continues  its  attitude  of 
"supine  inaction"  toward  the  radical  ele- 

i  Ibid. 


THE  GREAT  MENACE  25 

ments  over  the  country.  Three  days  later 
the  Executive  Committee  of  the  National 
Security  League  issued  a  statement  which 
said :  *  *  The  time  has  arrived  for  the  peo- 
ple of  America  to  wake  up  to  a  realization 
of  what  is  taking  place.  It  is  social  evolu- 
tion downward — nothing  else.  The  radi- 
cal agitation  which  is  menacing  the  found- 
ations of  our  industrial  life  is  not  based 
upon  specific  grievances,  but  is  aimed  at 
the  overthrow  of  American  institutions 
and  ideals  just  as  surely  as  if  a  Bolshevist 
army  was  marching  on  Washington.  The 
American  people  are  confronted  with  all 
the  destructive  forces  of  minority  class 
rule  which  have  made  a  waste  of  Russia. 
The  bloody  method  of  the  Bolshevist  revo- 
lution is  the  only  condition  lacking.  In 
fact,  its  absence  is  the  sole  reason  for  the 
long  blinding  of  our  citizens '  eyes  to  what 
is  going  on.  Internationalism,  syndical- 
ism, communism,  socialism,  are  the  an- 
titheses of  Americanism.  Americanism 
means  the  best  in  the  ideals  of  the  peoples 
of  all  the  world,  the  best  of  human  ideals 
— manhood.  Manhood  means  ambition, 
self-denial,  thrift.  These  ideals  can 


26          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

spring  only  from  the  protection  of  personal 
liberty  and  the  right  of  property — the 
right  of  individual  possession  of  property 
as  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution.  He 
who  does  not  believe  this  cannot  be  an 
American. ' ' 

Out  of  the  press  comments  on  the  steel 
strike  the  Literary  Digest x  had  this  con- 
clusion: "As  many  observers  see  it,  the 
calling  of  the  steel  strike  at  this  time  re- 
veals the  purpose  of  certain  revolutionary 
radicals  to  wrest  control  from  the  hands  of 
moderate-minded  leaders  and  place  the 
Reds  in  the  saddle,  thus  making  it  '  the 
first  gun  of  the  industrial  revolution. ' 

Speaking  at  a  meeting  of  the  Institute 
of  Arts  and  Sciences  of  Columbia  Univers- 
ity, President  Nicholas  Murray  Butler  re- 
ferred to  the  steel  strike,  saying:  "The 
history  of  the  beginnings  of  the  steel  strike 
reads  strangely  like  the  beginnings  of  the 
European  war.  The  ultimatums  of  Mr. 
Fitzpatrick  and  Mr.  Foster  might  well 
have  been  written  by  Count  Berchtold, 
Chancellor  Bethman-Hollweg,  or  Minister 
von  Jagow.  The  published  statements  of 

i  October  11,  1919,  p.  11. 


THE  GREAT  MENACE  27 

these  gentlemen  are  alike  in  that  they  make 
no  appeal  whatsoever  to  right  and  justice, 
but  simply  give  notice  of  peremptory  de- 
mands and  announce  that  when  a  fixed 
limit  of  time  expires  force  will  be  used  to 
support  the  demands.  Yet  few  people  re- 
alize that  the  demands  and  ultimatums  of 
Mr.  Foster  and  Mr.  Fitzpatrick  are  just 
as  much  contrary  to  our  political  princi- 
ples as  those  of  the  Ministers  of  the  Cen- 
tral Powers." 

Thinking  is  somewhat  clarified  by  the 
fact  that  the  steel  and  iron  workers  who 
went  on  strike  were  receiving  $8,  $18, 
$22,  and  some  as  high  as  $30  a  day. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Institute  of  Arts 
and  Science  of  Columbia  University  Presi- 
dent Butler  also  said:  ' 'Recently  the 
startling  doctrine  has  been  taught  and 
practiced  that  the  strike  may  be  used  to 
enforce  the  views  and  wishes  of  a  small 
minority  of  the  population  in  matters  re- 
lating not  only  to  public  transportation 
and  to  other  public  utilities,  but  to  political 
and  public  acts  of  every  sort.  ...  It  must 
be  apparent  that  without  complete  loyalty 
to  the  democratic  principle,  without  re- 


28          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

spect  for  law,  without  sincere  devotion  to 
American  ideals  of  government,  and  with- 
out good  will  on  the  part  of  all  elements 
and  groups  of  society,  the  economic  and 
political  life  of  the  nation  can  no  longer 
go  forward,  and  that  we  are  in  imminent 
danger  of  national  shipwreck  and  of  in- 
calculable disaster." 

Loyal  Americans  do  not  want  to  be  made 
" tools"  for  the  undoing  of  American  in- 
stitutions. They  ought  to  be  forewarned 
that  they  may  not  be  misled  by  what  they 
read  or  hear,  or  by  misplaced  sympathy. 
The  Senate  Labor  Committee  investigat- 
ing the  steel  strike  elicited  the  astounding 
confession  from  Jacob  Margolis,  attorney 
of  the  I.  W.  W.  in  the  Pittsburg  district, 
an  admitted  advocate  of  social  revolution, 
of  ultra-radical  activities  underlying  the 
nation-wide  steel  strike  and  of  the  sinister 
purpose  of  the  revolutionists  to  control  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  and  all 
trade  unions.  Mr.  Margolis  declares  he  is 
11  against  God,  government,  and  Church." 
He  "wants  government  to  disappear." 
He  is  for  the  confiscation  of  private  prop- 
erty. His  confession  reveals  that  the  un- 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          29 

deriving  motive  of  the  modern  strike  is 
not  for  the  redress  of  grievances  but  for 
power  through  creating  internal  troubles 
and  unrest  that  will  lead  to  revolution. 
These  facts  ought  to  be  weighed  by  Ameri- 
can citizens.  And  no  people  will  welcome 
the  facts  more  than  the  honest  men  of 
labor.  The  ulterior  revolutionary  design 
of  modern  strikes  is  stated  by  Mr.  Mar- 
golis  in  these  words :  "I  favor  all  strikes. 
I  welcome  the  feeling  of  unrest.  I  believe 
in  production  organization.  The  Plumb 
Plan  is  a  step  in  that  direction.  I  want  the 
workers  to  conduct  the  industries.  I  view 
capital  as  entitled  to  no  reward." 

The  I.  W.  W.,  the  anarchic  syndicalists, 
the  Russian  Union,  are  all  for  the  strike, 
— not  for  grievances,  but  "to  cripple  in- 
dustry," create  "the  feeling  of  unrest," 
and  so  "help  the  revolutionary  actions  of 
American  workers,"  to  the  end  that  "pri- 
vate property  may  be  confiscated,"  "gov- 
ernment disappear,"  that  they  may  "con- 
duct the  industries,"  and  as  a  class  may 
rule. 

The  ultra-radical  methods  to  create 
trouble  and  unrest  may  for  the  time  create 


30          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

trouble  and  unrest, — for  labor  and  for 
others.  But  such  trouble  also  defers  the 
better  day  for  labor  as  for  others.  Amer- 
ica is  not  Russia.  In  Russia  80  per  cent, 
of  the  people  are  illiterate,  and  they  have 
never  been  trained  to  rule.  American  de- 
mocracy has  a  history  of  approximately 
150  years  and  a  people  in  the  main  who  are 
self-reliant,  loyal  and  intelligent,  and  who 
welcome  and  work  for  industrial  and  social 
improvement,  and  who,  therefore,  will 
never  consent  to  plans  that  would  despoil 
society  and  destroy  the  American  govern- 
ment and  institutions. 

Free  speech  is  not  license  for  treason. 
A  strike  for  redress  of  grievances  is  one 
thing ;  a  strike  with  underlying  revolution- 
ary intent,  in  a  word  for  power,  is  quite 
another  thing. 

Must  our  Federal  Government,  following 
the  laws  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand, 
declare  a  strike  of  employees,  or  a  lockout 
on  the  part  of  employers,  a  criminal  of- 
fense and  punishable,  and  require  that 
every  dispute  be  settled  by  compulsory 
arbitration?  That  is  possible.  But  there 
is  only  one  way  to  deal  with  the  nihilist 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          31 

movement  and  that  is  to  crush  it.  This 
much  is  certain:  the  American  people  in 
united  power  stand  for  the  maintenance 
of  law  and  order  and  sacred  American  in- 
stitutions. 

Has  the  time  come  for  inviting  certain 
men  and  groups  of  men  to  leave  the  coun- 
try? It  would  be  better  that  the  output  of 
industry  be  crippled  for  the  want  of  work- 
ers than  that  industry  itself  be  crippled  by 
the  presence  of  those  workers. 

One  other  word  of  warning  ought  to  be 
spoken  by  loyal  leaders  in  our  country, — 
a  warning  to  be  guarded  against  insidious 
writings  and  lectures.  Certain  respecta- 
ble appearing  publications  and  certain  ac- 
credited auspices  for  lectures  are  being 
used  by  sinister  propagandists,  who  art- 
fully weave  in  teachings  that  make  for  un- 
rest, with  revolutionary  design.  The 
daring  of  the  ultra-radicals  is  further  con- 
firmed by  Senator  Watson,  who  declared 
in  the  United  States  Senate  l  that  even  the 
Federal  service  is  honeycombed  with  all 
sorts  of  radical  propaganda  of  the  most 
obnoxious  kind.  The  disclosures  by 

i  October  20,  1919. 


32          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

Senator  Watson  have  caused  astonishment, 
— particularly  the  alleged  socialist  activi- 
ties of  Federal  Commission  employees  with 
the  spread  of  Bolshevism,  and  the  state- 
ment that  other  Government  officers  are 
"permeated  with  red  flag  socialism  and 
anarchism."  The  preamble  to  Senator 
Watson's  resolution  for  an.  investigation 
of  the  trade  commission,  reads  in  part: 
"If  Bolshevism,  with  all  that  it  implies,  is 
to  be  met  and  overcome  in  this  country  it 
must  be  done  by  first  ousting  all  its  ad- 
herents and  advocates  from  public  office." 

It  is  amazing  that  the  "reds"  have 
worked  their  way  into  high  places  and  that 
they  often  sit  in  the  seats  of  the  innocents. 
Our  good  fortune  is  that  their  work  and 
presence  are  known  at  last.  For  long  we 
slept,  and  the  dragon  crept  upon  us.  Now 
there  is  just  one  thing  to  do, — and  that  is 
to  place  our  heels  upon  it. 

With  the  avowed  purpose  of  radicalism ; 
with  the  warnings  and  protests  against  the 
Great  Menace  by  men  of  affairs  and  by 
representatives  of  capital  and  representa- 
tives of  labor;  with  the  seething  unrest  of 
to-day  that  unless  controlled  promises  to 


33 


break  out  into  flame ;  and  in  the  face  of  the 
wide  spread  spirit  of  socialism  under 
varied  names  and  in  varied  forms,  but  with 
intent  to  confiscate  property,  to  level  all 
classes,  to  cure  all  social  ills  by  killing  all 
extant  institutions,  dare  we  stand  by  silent, 
and  indolent  ?  Is  leadership  to  pass  to  un- 
reasoning visionaries  or  proponents  of 
violence  in  effort  to  establish  their  dis- 
torted image  of  free  government?  If  so, 
cataclysm  will  sweep  our  country  and  in- 
volve the  world.  The  leaders  of  both  cap- 
ital and  labor  are  working  to  stay  such 
calamity.  Can  a  loyal  American  do  less? 
When  the  Great  Menace  is  known  and  its 
plot  exposed,  it  will  be  opposed  by  the  loyal 
of  our  country  with  .all  the  fervor  of 
moral  passion. 

The  time  is  when  sane  leaders  must  lead. 
The  urgency  is  a  summons  to  all  good 
citizens  and  their  various  organizations: 
associations,  boards  of  trade,  lodges, 
granges,  women 's  clubs,  colleges,  churches. 
The  people  ought  to  be  informed  and 
warned.  The  sinister  design  of  socialism 
or  bolshevism  is  often  presented  with  such 
rose-colored  philosophy  that  many  men  and 


34          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

women  who  writhe  under  unjust  social 
conditions,  and  who,  cut  to  the  quick 
by  seeing  the  worn,  emaciated  and  de- 
spoiled victims  of  economic  plutocracy, 
have  turned  to  socialism  in  the  hope  of  re- 
lief, not  knowing  that  in  so  doing  they 
were  following  a  mirage, — as  in  Russia  op- 
pressed people  looked  to  the  socialist-bol- 
shevist  movement  as  to  a  savior,  only  to 
find  a  despot  sevenfold  greater  than  the  one 
previously  known  or  of  which  an  outraged 
people  had  ever  dreamed. 

In  our  country  the  socialists  come  with 
sweet  words  and  golden  promises  of  an 
immediate  industrial  millennium.  I  speak 
whereof  I  know.  I  have  attended  their 
meetings,  talked  with  their  leaders,  read 
their  books,  pamphlets  and  papers. 
Should  they  accomplish  their  designs, 
nothing  for  the  time  being  could  prevent 
our  country  from  becoming  another  de- 
spoiled and  bleeding  Russia.  Of  course, 
such  conditions  could  not  continue  forever, 
but  continuing  even  for  a  time  the  price 
that  would  be  paid  in  added  suffering  and 
human  woe  for  the  lesson  would  be  appal- 
ling. 


THE  GREAT  MENACE  35 

Every  society  and  church  in  our  country 
ought  to  make  known  that  the  socialist- 
bolshevist  movement  is  a  menace,  not  a 
Messiah,  and  so  cooperate  with  the  worthy 
leaders  of  labor  and  capital  for  the  pre- 
servation of  American  institutions.  This 
is  a  work  we  ought  to  do,  and  we  ought  to 
do  it  now.  In  doing  it,  let  us  make  sure 
that  we  keep  our  temper  as  well  as  our 
loyalty. 

It  must  be  made  plain  that  revolution 
has  no  right  in  a  democracy.  Revolution 
is  inimical  to  the  right  of  self-determina- 
tion. One  of  the  meanings  of  democracy 
is  that  it  is  a  government  wholly  by  the 
people.  That  is  why  we  speak  of  the  Ad- 
ministration;  it  administers  the  govern- 
ment of  sovereign  citizens,  who  by  major- 
ity voice  have  sole  authority  to  determine 
national  policy.  In  Europe  for  the  most 
part  the  right  of  people  to  govern  them- 
selves has  been  denied.  Kings  and  emper- 
ors have  been  rulers.  Therefore,  revolu- 
tion has  been  advocated,  and  the  people 
have  been  in  age  long  revolt  against  their 
rulers.  In  America  we  are  our  own  rulers ; 
therefore,  there  is  no  room  for  revolution. 


36          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

The  right  of  revolt  does  not  exist.  How 
can  we  revolt  against  ourselves  ?  Through 
the  hard  school  of  experience  we  may 
change  our  views,  may  reverse  our  judg- 
ments, but  in  so  doing  we  speak  for  our- 
selves, determine  our  own  destiny, — which 
is  pleasant  and  prosperous  when  our  deter- 
mination is  right,  or  unpleasant  and  dis- 
astrous when  our  determination  is  wrong. 
But  we  are  willing  to  pay  the  price  of  mis- 
takes for  the  privilege  of  ruling  ourselves. 
To  a  part  of  our  people,  however,  particu- 
larly to  those  who  have  come  to  us  from 
other  countries  we  should  make  it  clear 
that  in  determining  any  internal  policy  we 
have  no  right  to  use  force  or  have  recourse 
to  anything  but  public  opinion  and  the 
orderly  processes  of  law  as  previously  de- 
termined by  majority  voice  of  the  people, 
of  whom  we  are  a  part. 

Because  we  are  our  own  rulers  we  regard 
as  dangerous  any  group  of  men  who  would 
usurp  to  themselves  the  prerogatives  of 
government  that  belong  to  the  people,  just 
as  we  would  regard  as  dangerous  any  ex- 
ecutive who  would  arrogate  to  himself  the 
prerogatives  that  belong  to  the  people. 


THE  GEEAT  MENACE  37 

Rule  by  a  group  or  an  individual  is  autoc- 
racy, which  is  diametrically  the  opposite  of 
democracy.  And  exactly  that  is  the  pur- 
pose of  those  persons  who  would  effect  so- 
cial changes  by  recourse  to  revolution. 
The  purpose  is  tyranny.  And  nothing  is 
to  be  gained,  save  more  trouble,  by  falsify- 
ing the  fact.  However,  the  condition  is 
not  one  to  be  faced  in  dismay,  but  with  de- 
cision and  with  definite  steps  for  removing 
the  very  roots  of  the  trouble,  which  can  be 
done  because  it  must  be  done.  Dawdling 
must  give  place  to  doing. 

The  Great  Menace  is  not  the  only  wrong 
to  be  righted.  The  unfeeling  employer 
who  has  exploited  labor,  thereby  inflict- 
ing suffering  that  cries  to  heaven  for  judg- 
ment, and  also  thereby  reflecting  on  hon- 
orable employers  who  are  considerate  and 
just,  deserves  moral  execration  and  our 
demand  for  laws  that  will  bring  him  to 
justice.  The  profiteer  who  combines  with 
his  competitor  in  making  fictitious  prices 
should  similarly  be  dealt  with.  Wicked- 
ness in  "high  places"  must  be  condemned, 
just  as  wickedness  is  condemned  in  other 
places.  But  the  Great  Menace  must  have 


38          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

our  immediate  attention  because  it  is  our 
immediate  peril. 

In  all  this,  we  ought  to  keep  clearly  in 
mind  that  the  movement  typified  by  the 
words  "organized  labor"  is  not  to  be 
confused  with  the  socialist  movement. 
Radicals  have  sought  its  control  by  "bor- 
ing in"  the  Federation  of  Labor  "from 
within,"  but  they  do  not  represent  the 
majority  nor  the  conscience  of  organized 
labor.  We  ought  also  to  keep  clearly  in 
mind  that  men  of  wealth  to-day  have  large 
opportunity  for  constructive  service  in  es- 
tablishing a  just  social  order.  Upon  them 
is  that  solemn  duty.  Labor's  rights  and 
capital 's  rights  are  only  the  common  rights 
of  society.  They  are  not  to  be  classified 
and  dealt  with  as  separate  from  the  rights 
of  all  other  classes.  That  sort  of  thing 
will  help  neither  labor  nor  capital  nor 
society  at  large.  Let  us  do  everything  we 
can  to  allay,  not  foment  classism.1  Class 
rule  of  any  sort  is  un-democratic,  un-Amer- 
ican and  unsafe,  be  it  of  capital  or  labor, 
noble  or  ignoble,  learned  or  unlearned. 
Opposed  to  this  the  socialists-bolshevists 

J  See  New  Era  Magazine,  September,  1919,  p.  473. 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          39 

aim  at  class  rule,  by  themselves.  Loyal 
citizens  will  stand  for  true  Americanism: 
for  government  of,  for  and  by  the  people; 
for  a  spirit  of  moderation  and  restraint, 
of  justice  and  good  will  to  all.  That  noble 
spirit  of  idealism,  that  atmosphere  of  tra- 
ditional Americanism,  must  be  the  soul  and 
breath  of  effective  work. 

Since  the  signing  of  the  Armistice  some- 
thing fine  seems  to  have  gone  out  of  the 
world.  Could  such  a  war  result  otherwise? 
Many  men  and  women  who  during  the  war 
worked  and  sacrificed  and  bought  liberty 
bonds,  all  as  one  big  family  together,  are 
now  willing  to  knife  one  another,  in  a  mad, 
deadly  game  of  beggar-my-neighbor, — po- 
licemen leaving  cities  to  the  pillaging  of 
the  under-world,  longshoremen  and  other 
workmen  letting  food  spoil  on  docks  and  in 
warehouses  while  families  suffer  for  want 
of  it,  miners  ready  to  jeopardize  the  health 
and  lives  of  little  children  and  helpless 
mothers  through  need  of  fuel,  and  clamor 
widespread  for  more  profit,  wages,  gain. 
To  go  on  at  that  pace  is  to  follow  a  vicious 
circle,  one  that  has  no  end.  That  sort  of 
policy  will  injure  the  country  worse  than 
did  the  war.  Here  again,  must  not  sane 


40          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

leaders  lead — by  example  and  counsel! 
Extravagance  now  is  worse  than  bolshev- 
ism  for  it  is  creative  of  that  very  thing. 

"The  men  who  toil  with  their  hands,  who 
protect  our  persons  and  our  property  are 
not  vicious  and  cruel.  They  are  simply 
swept  off  their  feet  by  a  tide  that  is  too 
heavy  for  most  of  them.  .  .  .  Suddenly 
made  conscious  of  their  power  they  forget 
their  obligations  to  other  members  of  so- 
ciety and  insist  only  on  what  they  think  to 
be  their  rights.  Some  great  new  ideas 
must  be  instilled  into  their  minds, ' '  *  rea- 
sons a  recent  writer. 

Rather,  must  not  some  great  old  ideas 
be  instilled  into  all  minds — the  ideas  of 
social  justice  and  brotherhood,  for  which 
millions  of  American  men  went  to  war? 

The  present  particular  task  is  large  and 
urgent.  To  underestimate  or  idly  con- 
template the  Great  Menace  is  to  let  the 
ship  of  state  go  upon  the  rocks. 

The  Great  Menace  not  only  seeks  the 
overthrow  of  government  and  American 
institutions  but  also  the  Church.  It  would 
clean  it  out,  root  and  branch.  Its  philoso- 

i  CongregationaUst  and  Advance,  Sept.  4,  1919,  p.  293. 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          41 

phy  has  no  room  for  any  of  the  churches 
of  to-day;  all  must  go;  our  country  is  to 
be  swept  clean  of  them.  This  doctrine, 
though  long  held  and  cogently  formulated 
(a  notable  exposition  being  that  of  the 
well-known  socialist  George  D.  Herron  a 
few  years  ago),  has  been  kept  in  the  back- 
ground of  activities — until  recently.  With 
the  success  of  the  Bolshevist  government 
in  Eussia  in  confiscating  church  properties 
and  prohibiting  public  teaching  or  study 
of  religion,  the  socialists  of  America,  evi- 
dently believing  conditions  ripe  for  their 
full  program,  have  made  bold  announce- 
ment of  opposition  to  the  public  teaching 
or  study  of  religion.  An  illustration  of 
the  intent  and  determination  to  do  away 
with  churches  is  a  recent  book  of  315  pages 
by  a  present-day  exponent  of  socialism. 
The  author  has  culled  history  to  show  that 
the  Church  is  the  enemy  of  progress ;  that 
the  woes  of  mankind  are  to  be  traced  to 
its  bigotry;  that  it  kindled  martyr  fires 
through  the  centuries  for  the  burning  of 
saintly  reformers,  who  dared  to  think ;  that 
it  persecuted  and  imprisoned  scientists  who 
were  trying  to  lead  the  world  in  the  way  of 


42          THE  GEEAT  MENACE 

light ;  that  churchmen  have  been  more  zeal- 
ous for  the  orthodoxy  of  tradition  than  for 
the  heterodoxy  of  holy  living. 

The  reason  for  the  opposition  of  the  so- 
cialists-bolshevists  to  the  Church,  the 
gravamen  of  their  grievance,  appears  in 
the  clearly  expressed  belief  that  the  Church 
is  "a  shield  to  Privilege,"  and  that  the 
Church  keeps  struggling  people  "in  sub- 
jection to  the  noble  or  wealthy."  What 
answer?  Let  us  face  the  charge. 

I  would  evade  nothing.  Give  us  facts, 
though  only  a  claw,  a  tooth,  or  a  bone.  It 
is  true  that  things  horrible  have  been  done 
in  the  name  of  "religion."  And  things 
more  horrible  have  been  done  in  the  name 
of  "government,"  and  of  "law,"  and  of 
"labor,"  and  "progress."  Yet,  no  sane 
person  wants  to  do  away  with  government, 
with  laws,  with  labor,  and  with  progress. 

Is  it  fair  to  judge  nations  of  to-day  by 
their  histories  of  even  a  hundred  or  more 
years  ago?  France  of  to-day  cannot  be 
judged  by  the  times  of  Napoleon,  nor  Eng- 
land of  to-day  by  the  history  of  George  III, 
or  Henry  VIII,  nor  Scotland  of  to-day  by 
the  doings  of  the  Stewarts. 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          43 

Indeed,  there  is  a  way  of  reading  history 
as  to  make  it  appear  that  our  own  nation 
is  full  of  mistakes,  that  from  beginning  to 
end  we  have  been  a  lot  of  blunderers,  try- 
ing to  build  a  democracy  but  making  a 
bungling  job  of  it.  Yet,  despite  mistakes, 
progress  has  been  made,  our  country  has 
advanced,  and  so  largely  advanced  that 
America  has  not  only  saved  the  world,  but 
is  also  the  hope  of  the  world.  Why,  then, 
look  only  on  that  part  of  the  history  which 
records  mistakes,  and  go  harping  and 
whining  as  forgetting  that  good  is  here, — 
so  much  good  that  millions  of  men  and 
women  from  across  the  seas  have  come 
here  to  make  America  their  home. 

The  Church  too  has  made  mistakes. 
But  why  dwell  only  on  that  side  of  it?  De- 
spite the  worst  that  can  be  said,  the 
Church  has  advanced,  progress  has  been 
made,  and  its  merciful,  beneficent  work 
has  gone  on,  to  the  succor  and  help  of  mil- 
lions. It  has  been  the  pioneer  of  civiliza- 
tion in  America  and  other  lands.  Had  the 
Church  through  its  missionaries  only 
saved  the  mothers  of  India  from  the  super- 
stition which  led  them  to  sacrifice  infant 


44          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

children  in  the  Ganges,  or  only  saved  in- 
nocent child  widows  in  India  from  being 
burned  alive  at  the  time  of  the  burial  of 
their  husband,  that  work  would  have  been 
worthy  of  recognition  as  a  great  and  nota- 
ble work.  But  all  this  is  ignored  by  the 
Socialists,  who  are  bent  on  the  destruction 
of  the  one  beneficent  institution  that  has 
brought  to  pass  such  changed  conditions. 
And  they  likewise  ignore  the  work  of  the 
Church  in  the  war,  giving  of  its  sons,  giv- 
ing of  its  healing  help,  giving  of  millions 
of  dollars1  for  the  succor  and  comfort  of 
men  regardless  of  creed  or  color,  supply- 
ing 3,000  chaplains  and  thousands  of  other 
workers  who  counted  life  not  dear  that 
they  might  serve  the  noble  men  who  fought 
our  war,  and  giving  to  the  full  of  its 
strength  that  the  world  might  be  saved 
from  the  ruthless  rule  of  mad  despots. 

The  socialists  also  overlook  the  contrib- 
uting work  of  the  Church  for  an  enduring 
world  peace.  They  pride  themselves  on 
being  opposed  to  war.  Is  any  sane  person 
not  opposed  to  war?  Was  not  the  recent 
great  war  "a  war  to  end  war"?  That 
cause  was  loyally  supported  by  the 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          45 

Church.  How  much  did  the  socialists  do? 
Was  any  inspirational  or  material  aid 
given  by  them,  except  under  constraint  and 
protest? 

Through  many  years,  particularly  the 
last  century,  the  Church  has  been  doing 
practical  work  that  is  making  for  world 
peace.  V.  Wellington  Koo,  the  minister 
from  the  Chinese  Eepublic,  said  in  1916 
that  nothing  "has  more  strongly  impressed 
Chinese  minds  as  to  the  sincerity,  the  gen- 
uineness, the  altruism  of  American  friend- 
ship for  China  than  the  spirit  of  service 
and  sacrifice  so  beautifully  demonstrated 
by  American  missionaries."  It  is  the 
spirit  of  service  and  sacrifice  that  prevails 
in  the  main  in  churches  to-day.  When 
such  spirit  of  moral  and  spiritual  idealism, 
which  the  Church  is  working  to  extend, 
prevails  among  nations,  war  will  be  no 
more,  war  will  be  impossible. 

But  what  of  the  charge  that  the  Church 
is  the  "shield  and  armor  of  .predatory 
economic  might,"  and  keeps  struggling 
people  "in  subjection  to  the  noble  or 
wealthy"? 

Could  any  belief  be  more  mistaken?  Is 
the  statement  fair?  Does  it  bespeak  ac- 


46  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

quaintance  with  the  work  of  the  Church? 
Are  the  eyes  of  the  men  who  make  such 
statement  wholly  closed  to  its  manifold 
ministries  to  every  possible  human  need 
and  for  the  amelioration  of  social  condi- 
tions? Are  their  ears  stopped  to  its  out- 
cry against  social  injustice  and  wrong? 
tyranny  and  privilege?  Have  they  not 
heard  its  ever  insistent  voice  for  higher 
consideration  of  the  rights  of  the  people? 
Will  they  not  admit  that  the  Church  has 
inspired  a  mighty  ethical  impulse,  and  that 
no  one  except  bolshevists  would  want  to 
live  in  a  country  without  it? 

The  Church  is  committed  to  the  great 
constructive  statesmanship  of  the  Christ, 
and  so  is  a  great  incomparable  agency  for 
a  purified  democracy,  for  establishing 
equity  and  justice  among  men. 

"None  are  so  blind  as  those  who  will  not 
see."  Do  the  socialists  object  to  the 
teaching  of  justice?  We  must  admit  that 
that  means  condemnation  of  an  unjust 
wage  demand  and  condemnation  of  the  con- 
fiscation of  property,  as  well  as  condem- 
nation of  economic  plutocracy.  It  may  not 
be  popular,  but  it  is  necessary,  to  teach  the 


THE  GREAT  MENACE          47 

moral  law :  *  *  Thou  shalt  not  steal. ' '  And 
that  the  Church  doubtless  will  continue  to 
do,  even  as  it  will  continue  to  teach  of 
righteousness,  brotherhood,  mercy,  and 
forgiveness. 

Might  cannot  for  long  rule  men;  never 
can  it  rule  the  world  of  souls.  Progress 
is  possible  only  through  conforming  to 
moral  law.  And  no  group  of  men,  classes 
or  nations  can  secure  permanent  good  for 
themselves  through  despoiling  or  exploit- 
ing others,  or  obtaining  by  force,  fraud, 
or  unjust  law  that  which  belongs  to  others. 
There  is  no  short  cut  to  Utopias  or  a  bet- 
ter order  of  society,  no  enduring  road  over 
which  men  and  nations  can  come  save  that 
of  righteousness  and  justice.  The  more 
the  men  who  walk  that  way,  the  nearer  the 
day  of  our  common  prosperity  and  com- 
mon happiness  in  living  together,  and  in 
serving  together  humankind.  To  that  end 
the  Great  Menace  must  go. 


II 


THE    RELATION    OF    THE    PEOPLE,    LABOR,    AND 
CAPITAL  IN    THE  IMPENDING  REVOLUTION 

THE  present  industrial  and  political  crisis 
directly  concerns  every  man,  woman  and 
child  in  America.  All  that  we  have,  all 
that  is  sacred  for  which  our  fathers  spent 
their  lives  is  in  jeopardy.  If  we  value  our 
homes  and  our  country  we  must  face  con- 
ditions from  all  possible  view-points,  cour- 
ageously, calmly  and  with  resolute  action. 
Loyal  Americans  must  get  together. 
Where  laboring  men  believe  that  they 
have  grievances,  we  must  try  to  see  condi- 
tions from  their  view-point,  counseling 
and  working  together  with  them  sympa- 
thetically and  harmoniously.  The  ranks 
of  labor  teem  with  men  of  intense  patriot- 
ism and  with  as  high  idealism  as  our  own. 
They  have  proved  this  again  and  again. 
Now  as  loyal  citizens,  we  must  all  get  to- 
gether and  pull  together  to  expose  the  plot- 
tings  of  the  ultra-radicals  and  to  save 

48 


PEOPLE,  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL    49 

credulous  laborers  and  ourselves  from 
the  disaster  of  mistaken  and  ruinous  lead- 
ership. 

Every  citizen  knows  in  a  general  way 
that  the  present  is  a  period  of  unrest,  that 
the  country  is  menaced  by  radicalism  and 
that  continued  strikes  (about  300  at  the 
present  time  in  the  United  States  and 
Canada)  are  resulting  in  wage  losses  of 
hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  and  in 
losses  to  industries  of  hundreds  of  millions 
of  dollars, — thereby  adding  to  the  high  cost 
of  living.1  All  this  is  known.  Is  it  as 
clearly  known  that  all  this  is  mainly  a  re- 
sult of  a  comprehensive,  pre-conceived  and 
carefully  laid  plan?  Do  the  patriotic  men 
of  labor  know  of  the  effort  to  make  them 
a  tool  to  promote  unrest,  and  to  effect  in- 
dustrial and  political  revolution?  Do  they 
know  that  the  hardships  as  a  result  of 
strikes  fall  heavily  on  innocent  people  and 
heaviest  on  poor  mothers  and  children  who 
are  least  able  to  bear  them?  Do  they 

i  In  the  recent  Longshoremen's  strike  in  New  York 
the  wage  losses  to  longshoremen  have  been  estimated  at 
$8,000,000.  Wage  and  salary  losses  of  clerks,  teamsters 
and  others  made  idle  by  the  tie-up  are  figured  at  $4,000,- 
000.  Steamship  interests  suffered  a  loss  estimated  at 
about  $35,000,000.  The  wage  losses  to  miners  in  the 
recent  coal  strike  are  estimated  at  $50,000,000. 


50  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

know  that  that  suffering  is  part  of  the  plot 
and  plan  of  the  radical- strike  leaders  in 
the  hope  that  the  sufferings  will  result  in 
uprising  for  the  overthrow  of  the  govern- 
ment and  the  confiscation  of  lands  and  in- 
dustries? Such  continued  unrest  and 
strikes  will  but  make  harder  any  hardships 
of  labor.  Is  it  not  time  for  labor  in  its 
own  interests  to  clean  house?  In  times 
past,  organized  labor  for  the  most  part 
was  a  bulwark  against  any  un-American 
movement  or  propaganda.  Now  the  ultra- 
radicals,  by  their  own  confession,  having 
bored  their  way  into  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor,  are  seeking  to  revolu- 
tionize that  body  from  within,  with  radical 
direction  and  control.  That  is  the  crisis 
of  labor.  Labor's  rights  are  imperiled 
from  within.  If  labor  hopes  to  retain  the 
popular  sympathy  which  it  has  enjoyed,  its 
stand  must  be  unequivocal  for  law  and  or- 
der and  the  country's  welfare.  If  organ- 
ized labor  cannot  be  purged  of  the 
radicalism  which  advocates  "  direct  ac- 
tion," " sabotage"  and  "revolution,"  it 
will  ultimately  be  split  in  twain. 

Even  now  the  ultra-agitators  boast  that 


PEOPLE,  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL    51 

they  control  more  than  30  per  cent  of  all 
organized  labor  in  the  country.  The  pa- 
thetic and  astounding  part  of  such  leader- 
ship is  that  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
men  who  are  following  it  do  not  know  that 
it  is  wrong,  do  not  know  that  they  are  being 
used,  do  not  suspect  the  sinister  purposes 
of  their  leaders.  Who  are  some  of  their 
leaders?  Jacob  Margolis,  an  assistant  in 
organizing  the  Steel  Strike,  who  by  his  own 
confession  is  against  "God,  government 
•and  Church."  Another  leader  is  William 
N.  Foster,  Secretary  of  the  National  Com- 
mittee that  organized  the  Steel  Strike.  In 
1912,  a  47-page  pamphlet  on  syndicalism 
was  published  by  him  and  L.  C.  Ford,  from 
which  are  the  following  condensed  ex- 
cerpts : 

"The  syndicalist  knows  that  capital- 
ism is  organized  robbery  and  he  consis- 
tently considers  and  treats  capitalists  as 
thieves  plying  their  trade.  He  knows 
they  have  no  more  'right'  to  the  wealth 
they  have  amassed  than  a  burglar  has  to 
his  loot,  and  the  idea  of  expropriating 
them  without  remuneration  seems  as 
natural  to  him  as  for  the  footpad's  vie- 


52  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

tim  to  take  back  his  stolen  property  with- 
out paying  the  footpad  for  it.  From 
long  experience,  he  has  learned  that  the 
so-called  legal  and  inalienable  'rights' 
of  man  are  but  pretenses  with  which  to 
deceive  working  men;  that  in  reality 
'rights'  are  only  enjoyed  by  those  capa- 
ble of  enforcing  them.  He  knows  that 
in  modern  society,  as  in  all  ages,  might 
is  right,  and  that  the  capitalists  hold  the 
industries  they  have  stolen  and  daily 
perpetrate  the  robbery  of  the  wages  sys- 
tem simply  because  they  have  the  eco- 
nomic power  to  do  so.  He  has  fathomed 
the  current  system  of  ethics  and  morals 
and  knows  them  to  be  just  so  many 
auxilaries  to  the  capitalist  class.  Con- 
sequently, he  has  cast  them  aside  and 
has  placed  his  relations  with  the  capital- 
ists upon  a  basis  of  naked  power.  In 
his  choice  of  weapons  to  fight  his  capital- 
ist enemies,  the  syndicalist  is  no  more 
careful  to  select  those  that  are  'fair' 
'just'  or  'civilized'  than  is  a  householder 
attacked  in  the  night  by  a  burglar.  He 
proposes  to  bring  about  the  revolution 
by  the  general  strike.  By  the  term  'gen- 


PEOPLE,  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL    53 

eral  strike,'  used  in  a  revolutionary 
sense,  is  meant  the  period  of  more  or  less 
general  cessation  of  labor  by  the  work- 
ers, during  which  period,  the  workers, 
by  disorganizing  the  mechanism  of  cap- 
italist society,  will  expose  its  weakness 
and  their  own  strength ;  whereupon,  per- 
ceiving themselves  possessed  of  the 
power  to  do  so,  they  will  seize  control 
of  the  social  means  of  production  and 
proceed  to. operate  them  in  their  own  in- 
terest instead  of  in  the  interest  of  a 
handful  of  parasites,  as  heretofore. 
The  general  strike  is  the  first  stage  of 
the  revolution  proper."  [From  page 
9.] 

"The  wealthy  capitalists  themselves 
will  also  need  generous  guards.  Syndi- 
calists in  every  country  are  already  ac- 
tively preparing  this  disorganization  of 
the  armed  forces  by  carrying  on  a  double 
educational  campaign  among  the  work- 
ers. On  the  one  hand  they  are  destroy- 
ing their  illusions  about  the  sacredness 
of  capitalist  property  and  encouraging 
them  to  seize  this  property  wherever 
they  have  the  opportunity.  On  the 


54  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

other,  they  are  teaching  working  class 
soldiers  not  to  shoot  their  brothers  and 
sisters  who  are  in  revolt,  but,  if  need  be, 
to  shoot  their  own  officers  and  to  desert 
the  army  when  the  crucial  moment  ar- 
rives. This  double  propaganda  of  con- 
tempt for  capitalist  property  'rights' 
and  anti-militarism,  are  inseparable 
from  the  propagation  of  the  general 
strike."  [Page  11.] 

" Another  favorite  objection  of  ultra 
legal  and  peaceful  socialists  is  that  the 
general  strike  would  cause  bloodshed. 
This  is  probably  true,  as  every  great 
strike  is  accompanied  by  violence. 
Every  forward  pace  humanity  has  taken 
has  been  gained  at  the  cost  of  untold 
suffering  and  loss  of  life,  and  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  revolution  will  prob- 
ably be  no  exception.  But  the  prospect 
of  bloodshed  does  not  frighten  the  syn- 
dicalist worker  as  it  does  the  parlor 
socialist.  He  is  too  much  accustomed  to 
risking  himself  in  the  murderous  indus- 
tries and  on  the  hellish  battlefields  in  the 
niggardly  service  of  his  masters  to  set 
much  value  on  his  life.  He  will  gladly 


PEOPLE,  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL    55 

risk  it  once,  if  necessary,  in  his  own  be- 
half. He  has  no  sentimental  regard  for 
what  may  happen  to  his  enemies  during 
the  general  strike.  He  leaves  them  to 
worry  over  that  detail."  [Page  13.] 

1  'Next  to  the  partial  strike,  the  most 
effective  weapon  used  by  syndicalists  in 
their  daily  warfare  on  capitalism  is 
sabotage.  Sabotage  is  a  very  general 
term.  It  is  used  to  describe  all  those 
tactics,  save  the  boycott  and  the  strike 
proper,  which  are  used  by  workers  to 
wring  concessions  from  their  employers 
by  inflicting  losses  on  them  through  the 
stopping  or  slowing  down  of  industry, 
turning  out  of  poor  product,  etc.  The 
most  widely  known  form  of  sabotage  is 
that  known  as  putting  the  machinery  on 
strike  thus  temporarily  disabling  it.  If 
he  is  a  railroader  he  cuts  wires,  puts 
cement  in  switches,  signals,  etc.,  runs 
locomotives  into  turntable  pits,  and  tries 
in  every  possible  way  temporarily  to  dis- 
organize the  delicately  adjusted  raUroad 
system.  If  he  is  a  machinist  or  factory 
worker,  and  hasn't  ready  access  to  the 
machinery  he  will  hire  out  as  a  scab  and 


56  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

surreptitiously  put  emery  dust  in  the 
bearings  of  the  machinery  or  otherwise 
disable  it.  Oftentimes  he  takes  time  by 
the  forelock,  and  when  going  on  strikes 
'puts  the  machinery  on  strike'  with  him 
by  hiding,  stealing  or  destroying  some 
small  indispensable  machine  part  which 
is  difficult  to  replace.  Sabotage  is 
peculiarly  a  weapon  of  the  rebel  minor- 
ity. Its  successful  application,  unlike 
the  strike,  does  not  require  the  coopera- 
tion of  all  the  workers  interested.  A 
few  rebels  can,  undetected,  sabot  and 
demoralize  an  industry  and  force  the 
weak  or  timid  majority  to  share  in  its 
benefits.  The  syndicalists  are  not  con- 
cerned that  the  methods  of  sabotage  may 
be  'underhanded'  or  'unmanly.'  They 
are  very  successful  and  that  is  all  they 
ask  of  them."  [Pages  15,  17.] 

"The  syndicalist  takes  no  cognizance 
of  society.  He  is  interested  only  in  the 
welfare  of  the  working  class  and  con- 
sistently defends  it.  He  leaves  the  rag- 
tag mass  of  parasites  that  make  up  the 
non-working  class  part  of  society  to 
look  after  their  own  interests.  It  is  im- 


PEOPLE,  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL    57 

material  to  him  what  becomes  of  them 
so  long  as  the  working  class  advances. 
The  syndicalist  is  strictly  an  antistatist. 
He  considers  the  State  a  meddling  capi- 
talist institution.      He  is  a  radical  op- 
ponent of  'law  and  order,'  as  he  knows 
that  for  his  unions  to  be  'legal'  in  their 
tactics  would  be  for  them  to  become  im- 
potent."    [Page  28.] 
Such  are  the  utterances  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  National  Committee  that  organized 
the  Steel  Strike!     Such  is  the  outspoken 
movement  that  is  under  way  in  our  coun- 
try,— at  once  wrong  in  its  premises,  reason- 
ing and  conclusions.    But  we  must  never 
lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  many  of  its  fol- 
lowers do  not  know  that  it  is  wrong.     They 
must  be  disillusioned.     That  is  the  task  of 
loyal  men  of  labor ;  that  now  is  their  pecu- 
liar responsibility.     That  also  is  the  task 
of  all  loyal  Americans. 

Mr.  Foster's  partial  disavowal  (when 
under  fire  as  a  witness  before  the  Senate 
Committee  authorized  to  investigate  the 
Steel  Strike)  of  his  former  syndicalist  doc- 
trines will  be  accepted  in  the  light  of  his 
previous  utterances  in  his  brochure  on  syn- 


58  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

dicalism  "that  the  syndicalists  are  not 
concerned  that  methods  may  be  under- 
handed or  unmanly." 

The  time  was  when  strikes  were  an  in- 
strument for  the  redress  of  grievances; 
recently,  under  ultra-radical  leaders  they 
have  been  perverted  to  a  weapon  of  high- 
waymen, and  collective  bargaining  to  col- 
lective threatening.  From  such  leader- 
ship, organized  labor  ought  for  its  own 
sake  to  clear  its  skirts. 

For  protection  of  people  and  labor  cer- 
tain legal  restraint  and  control  is  exercised 
over  organized  capital.  Why  should  not 
certain  legal  restraint  and  control  be  ex- 
ercised over  organized  labor?  More  ef- 
fective than  strikes  would  be  labor's  right 
of  appeal  to  a  legalized  Board  of  Investiga- 
tion and  Recommendation.  Publicity  and 
punishment  of  tyrannous  and  unprincipled 
employers  would  soon  correct  the  wrongs 
of  employees, — whose  recourse  to  appeal 
rather  than  to  a  strike  would  not  work  in- 
justice to  the  remaining  teeming  millions 
of  their  fellow  countrymen. 

With  patience  and  honest  purpose  the 
right  and  wrong  of  strikes  will  yet  be  de- 


PEOPLE,  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL    59 

termined.  Just  now  the  question  is  acute. 
It  is  a  time  when  patriotic  labor  can  be 
a  bulwark  against  the  madness  of  bolshev- 
ism,  which  would  bring  suffering  to  all  and 
benefit  none  except  the  conscienceless  ultra- 
agitators,  who  aspire  to  rule,  at  any  cost 
of  blood  and  treasure.  Meantime,  until 
the  strike  question  is  settled  both  labor 
and  capital  must  consider  the  rights  of  the 
peoplei  In  the  recent  coal  strike,  the 
President  made  the  terse  statement  from 
Washington  that  it  is  a  crime  to  plan  a 
strike  to  benefit  half  a  million  and  injure 
one  hundred  million  people.  In  justice 
and  to  their  credit,  it  should  be  said,  large 
numbers  of  the  Miners'  Unions  were  not 
in  sympathy  with  that  strike,  though  they 
had  sore  grievances.  It  is  more  and  more 
apparent  that  a  small  percentage  of  work- 
ers are  making  trouble  for  their  fellow 
workers  and  for  our  whole  country. 

It  is  probable  that  3,000,000  would  be  a 
liberal  estimate  of  the  number  of  persons 
who  are  members  of  Labor  Unions  in  the 
United  States,1  or  about  25  per  cent,  of  the 
industrial  workers  of  the  country,  leaving 

i  The  American  Federation  of  Labor  claims  for  1918 
an  affiliated  membership  of  2,726,478. 


60  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

about  75  per  cent,  non-union  workers. 
(In  1910  there  were  11,490,944  persons  in 
the  United  States  engaged  in  industrial 
pursuits,1  exclusive  of  those  engaged  in 
agricultural,  commercial  and  similar  em- 
ployment). 

What  right  has  a  small  ''rebel  minor- 
ity" (to  use  the  very  words  of  the  ultra- 
radicals)  within  the  three  million,  or,  to  be 
liberal  in  reasoning,  what  right  has  the 
entire  three  million  trade  unionists  to  im- 
pose revolutionary  changes  in  the  social 
order  without  the  consent  of  the  remaining 
ninety-seven  million  of  the  population? 
In  democracy  we  have  long  recognized  that 
the  right  to  govern  obtains  only  through 
consent  of  the  governed.  No  three  million 
people,  of  whatever  name  or  class,  have 
right  to  dictate  social  changes  or  conditions 
to  the  remaining  ninety-seven  million  of 
the  population.  Woe  will  surely  come  to 
any  workers  whose  policy  is  not  based  on 
reason  and  justice.  Also  any  men  of 
wealth  who  would  exploit  labor,  withhold 
the  square  deal,  and  impose  suffering 

i  Lee  Wolman,  "  Extent  of  Trade  Unionism,"  Ameri- 
can Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science,  January, 
1917,  p.  120. 


PEOPLE,  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  61 

through  larger  profits  than  are  their  right- 
ful due,  are  sowing  to  the  wind  and  will 
surely  reap  the  whirlwind.  Do  we  not  be- 
lieve with  Attorney  General  Palmer  that 
such  men  "ought  to  be  rooted  out  and  ex- 
posed to  public  scorn,  and,  if  necessary, 
confined  in  public  prison"?  Just  such 
work  must  be  done  if  America  is  to  be 
protected  from  conditions  that  to  some 
seemingly  justify  experiments  of  socialism 
and  the  attacks  of  bolshevism.  The  peo- 
ple at  large  cannot  always  stand  the  pres- 
ent high  cost  of  living  and  consequent  suf- 
ferings (which  are  exactly  the  conditions 
for  which  the  ultra-radicals  have  been 
working).  Long  continued,  burdensome 
conditions  of  living  might  make  the  people 
willing  to  try  the  alternative  of  the  na- 
tionalization of  public  utilities  and  indus- 
tries. If  so,  such  plan  would  be  by  a 
people  trained  in  democracy — not  by  mad 
bolshevists  or  inexperienced  Russians. 
But  all  would  be  an  experiment,  entailing 
hardships  through  a  period  of  re-adjust- 
ment. Is  not  the  better  way  the  insistence 
by  citizens  on  all  business  being  done  in 
honest  ways  and  in  justice  to  all?  Labor, 


62  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

capital  and  the  people  must  learn  how  to 
live  on  with  one  another.  Idleness  must 
cease.  Work  must  continue  without  inter- 
ruption. Highest  wages  can  be  paid, 
satisfying  profits  made,  prosperity  pre- 
vail, on  a  basis  of  the  square  deal ;  and  in- 
dustrial differences  and  grievances  (griev- 
ances that  are  real,  not  those  of  the  wild 
imaginings  of  the  syndicalists)  can  be 
settled  by  conciliation,  "the  basis  of  which 
must  be  a  revised  attitude  on  the  part  of 
the  employers  and  employees,"  in  the  judg- 
ment of  Victor  A.  Olander,  Secretary  of 
the  Illinois  Federation  of  Labor.  This 
can  be  done  if  both  capital  and  labor  will 
play  fair,  if  both  sides  will  allow  it  to  be 
done.  If  they  will  not  allow  it  of  their  own 
accord,  they  may  be  obliged  to  do  it 
through  adjudication  by  the  people's  ac- 
cord, who  represent  probably  more  than  80 
per  cent,  of  the  population ;  the  remaining 
20  per  cent,  being  those  of  labor  and  capital 
in  industrial  pursuits  (as  distinguished 
from  commercial,  professional  and  agri- 
cultural pursuits). 

The  Chicago  Tribune  has  remarked  that 
"there  are  the  Capitalist  Groups  and  the 


PEOPLE,  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL    63 

Labor  Groups,  and  the  rest  of  us  are  the 
Goops."  The  ratio,  however,  of  the  latter 
to  the  former  is  as  four  to  one.  But  the 
groups  and  the  "goops"  are  inter-depend- 
ent. Is  not  our  need  to  get  together  as 
Americans,  all?  to  live  and  let  live? 

To  the  end  of  getting  together,  the 
Forum  should  be  encouraged — in  clubs, 
associations,  granges,  churches.  It  opens 
the  way  for  acquaintance,  for  getting  each 
other's  viewpoints,  for  mutual  understand- 
ing and  for  sympathetic,  patriotic  cooper- 
ation against  any  common  danger  and  for 
our  common  interests  and  country's  wel- 
fare. The  forum  is  not  an  experiment. 
It  has  been  tried  out  in  country,  village 
and  cities ;  sometimes  as  a  community  meet- 
ing; again,  under  the  auspices  of  a  club, 
society,  or  a  group  of  churches,  or  in  cities 
as  a  popular  free  meeting  in  a  theater  Sun- 
day evenings,  or  as  an  afternoon  folk-moot 
in  a  church.  This  custom  of  community 
discussion  is  here  to  stay.  The  benefits 
are  large.  Let  us  talk  things  out,  and  let 
some  men  get  talked  out!  In  any  discus- 
sion, however,  in  the  forum  or  elsewhere, 
we  must  discriminate  between  bolshevism 


64          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

and  the  honestly  aggrieved  of  industrial- 
ism. Their  wrongs  and  rights  cannot  be 
crushed  by  being  cried  down  as  socialism 
or  bolshevism.  That  sort  of  method  is 
despicable,  un-American,  and  defers  just 
settlement  on  which  common  welfare  de- 
pends. On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no 
room  in  democratic  America  for  the  ad- 
vocates of  violence  and  revolution,  or  for 
any  propaganda  other  than  that  of  appeal 
to  orderly  process. 

A  noted  economist,  Mr.  Glenn  Frank,  in 
recently  advocating  the  forum  as  ' '  the  par- 
liament of  the  people,"  said: 

''The  average  American  vote  is 
prompted  in  part  by  hereditary  opinion, 
in  part  by  mob  psychology,  and  in  part 
by  selfish  interest.  No  small  part  of  this 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  many  of  us  do  not 
have  an  information  basis  for  under- 
standing. 

11  Government    by    discussion    breaks 
down  the  tyranny  of  fixed  custom;  con- 
tinuous public  debate  on  public  problems 
is  the  root  of  change  and  progress ;  com- 
munity   discussion    breeds    tolerance;    it 


makes  for  steady  instead  of  intermittent 
progress. 

"In  fact,  common  counsel,  public  de- 
bate, community  discussion,  call  it  what 
you  will,  underlies  the  constructive  solu- 
tion of  all  the  vexed  situations  that  a 
nation  faces  in  a  time  of  readjustment 
and  change. 

"Opinion  arising  from  a  hurried  and 
uncritical  reading  of  head  lines  at  the 
breakfast  table  or  en  route  to  the  office 
is  thin  soil  from  which  to  expect  con- 
structive policies  to  spring.  We  must 
set  up  'The  Parliament  of  the  Peo- 
ple.' "* 

The  broader  vision  can  be  gained  only 
through  information,  sympathetic  rela- 
tions, and  consideration  of  one  another's 
problems — instead  of  merely  our  own. 
With  the  larger  vision  men  will  see  worth 
in  one  another,  and  that  the  common  sense 
and  right  way  to  do  is  to  pull  with  and  not 
against  one  another.  For  after  all,  strifes 
and  strikes  are  much  like  dog  fights  in 
flower  gardens — they  settle  nothing  but  the 
flowers. 

i  The  Century,  July,  1919,  pp.  401  ff. 


66          THE  GKEAT  MENACE 

The  time  is  here  when  all  classes  of 
American  citizens  ought  to  say  to  one  an- 
other, "Come,  and  let  us  reason  to- 
gether. " 


Ill 


CONDITIONS  FAVOEING  BOLSHEVISM  THAT  DO 

NOT  EIGHT  THEMSELVES;  AND  SEASONS 

FOE  FAITH  IN  THE  PEOPLE 

THE  growth  of  any  movement  has  the  sanc- 
tion of  certain  favoring  conditions ;  other- 
wise growth  is  impossible. 

Mr.  C.  H.  Parker  bears  the  pertinent 
reflection  that  "the  I.  W.  W.  can  be  prof- 
itably viewed  only  as  a  psychological  by- 
product of  the  neglected  childhood  of 
industrial  America. ' ' J  Whether  or  not 
this  is  true,  certain  it  is  that  the  Great 
Menace  is  the  psychological  by-product  of 
wrong  somewhere ;  it  may  be  wrong  judg- 
ment, wrong  thinking,  wrong  exactions  in 
making  a  living,  the  wrong  of  neglect  or 
training.  Whatever  the  wrongs,  can  we 
clear  them  up  1  In  asking  the  question,  we 
are  mindful  of  an  answering  echo :  * '  Clear 
them  up?" 

The  words  are  hurled  back  by  the  soph- 

i  Atlantic  Monthly,  November,  1917,  "  The  I.  W.  W.," 
pp.  651  ff. 

67 


68          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

ists  of  the  let-alone  policy;  the  words  of 
men  who  in  the  teeth  of  palpable  wrongs, 
human  miseries  and  appalling  needs  have 
said,  ''Things  will  right  themselves." 

Now,  the  Great  Menace  imperils  all  that 
is  sacred:  home,  Church,  and  State. 
Ominous  unrest  is  surging  about  our  feet. 
Disparity  of  opportunity  is  inflaming  the 
minds  of  men;  and,  wisely  or  unwisely, 
they  are  saying  that  vast  fortunes  and  dire 
poverty  are  found  side  by  side;  that  90 
per  cent,  of  the  wealth  of  the  country  is 
in  the  hands  of  10  per  cent,  of  the  popula- 
tion; that  two-thirds  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  are  under  conditions  of  dis- 
advantage ;  that  misery  caused  by  the  high 
cost  of  living  is  becoming  intolerable ;  and 
that  discontent  abounds.  Murmurings, 
criticisms,  and  threats  are  more  and  more 
heard.  We  cannot  blind  our  eyes  to  these 
facts.  Yet,  in  the  face  of  disturbing  con- 
ditions and  problems  incident  to  new  social 
adjustments  in  these  post-war  times,  the 
at-ease  men  are  saying,  "  Wrongs  will  right 
themselves." 

Strange  it  is  that  some  people  can  never 
see   an   automobile   coming  until   it  hits 


FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM        69 

them,  nor  believe  a  house  is  crumbling  until 
it  has  fallen  on  them.  Such  are  the  ones 
who  say,  "It  is  true  there  is  illiteracy,  but 
the  country  will  outgrow  it.  It  is  true 
there  is  injustice,  but  men  will  learn  better. 
It  is  true  there  are  imperiling  conditions, 
but  time  cures  all  things."  What  reply? 
This:  time  cures  nothing;  time  confirms, 
establishes,  intensifies.  Give  a  thistle  time 
and  it  becomes  more  thistle.  Time  cannot 
change  a  serpent  into  a  sheep;  time  will 
strengthen  the  serpent  life.  With  time, 
thistles  and  tares  in  the  garden  of  human- 
kind choke  out  worthy  life;  the  serpents 
of  unreason  and  injustice  work  death. 
Wrongs  do  not  right  themselves.  Passive 
acquiescence  with  wrong  conditions:  pov- 
erty or  tyranny,  profligacy  or  anarchy,  is 
sheer  folly  and  fatal. 

The  ever  increasing  (until  recently) 
foreign-born  population  in  our  country  has 
been  viewed  by  many  with  apprehension. 
The  suggestion  of  Americanization  and 
Christianization  was  greeted  with  the  cry,,. 
"America  will  assimilate  them.  Results 
will  take  care  of  themselves."  Results 
have  taken  care  of  themselves!  Through 


70          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

letting  alone  our  foreign-bom  popula- 
tion, we  now  mark  our  country's  danger 
zone  by  their  various  languages.  True, 
many  have  become  good  citizen,  some  have 
become  illustrious  citizens,  but  many  more 
are  as  foreign  to  Americanism  now  as 
when  they  first  touched  America's  shores. 
Where  let  alone,  they  have  gone  their  own 
way  or  have  been  an  easy  prey  to  the  ignor- 
ant preacher  of  radicalism.  In  American 
cities,  groups  of  these  people  have  Sunday- 
schools  of  their  own,  but  Sunday-schools 
which  teach  that  there  is  no  God,  no  future 
life,  no  reward  for  patient  well-doing ;  that 
property  has  no  rights,  labor  created  all, 
therefore,  all  belongs  to  labor.  Through 
the  let-alone  policy  unrest  and  unreason 
have  increasingly  possessed  this  people, 
and  that  spirit  has  ripened  into  bolshevism, 
precipitating  delicate  and  dangerous  con- 
ditions, and  bringing  our  country  to  the 
verge  of  cataclysm.  For  all  of  which  our 
acknowledgment  is  due  to  the  learned — and 
possibly  worldly — advocates  of  the  let- 
alone  policy. 

At  the  present  time  there  are  in  America 
about  thirteen  million  foreign  born  and 


thirty  million  not  more  than  one  genera- 
tion removed  from  foreign  nativity.  As 
these  people  came  to  America,  all  practi- 
cally were  segregated,  and  have  remained 
so,  in  large  cities  or  by  great  industries, 
living  within  themselves,  their  work  and 
limited  experience.  How  could  they  sense 
the  American  spirit  and  ideals  and  the 
mutualism  of  responsibilities  and  benefits 
of  democracy1?  These  newcomers  have 
come  mainly  out  of  poverty  and  intolerable 
economic  conditions,  and  with  a  feeling 
often  that  every  man's  hand  was  against 
them.  Many  were  allured  to  America  by 
romantic  stories  of  poor  boys  who  had 
amassed  fortunes  here,  others  by  the 
stories  of  wages  such  as  were  never 
dreamed  of  in  their  home  countries,  and 
possibly  some  came  believing  that  bread 
and  butter  grows  on  trees.  Certain  it  is 
that  none  of  them  knew  the  spirit  of  Amer- 
ica, that  our  history  has  been  one  of  work, 
of  struggle,  of  indomitable  purpose  and 
united  faith  and  optimism  in  the  righteous- 
ness of  contest  against  undeveloped  nature 
and  unsubdued  foes.  They  did  not  know 
that  all  that  we  possess,  value  and  admire, 


72  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

all  that  to  us  is  precious,  represents  sacri- 
fice, faith  and  works,  idealism  and  a  pull- 
togetherness.  That  is  the  essence  of 
Americanism.  But  how  were  our  foreign- 
born  people  to  know  it?  They  could  not 
read  our  language.  There  was  seldom  any 
one  to  interpret  America  to  them  in  their 
own  language,  nor,  let  us  confess,  was  it 
always  interpreted  to  them  in  the  terms  of 
fair  play,  the  square  deal,  considerateness 
and  justice, — which  terms  they  might  have 
understood.  Now,  the  seeds  of  neglect  and 
injustice  have  borne  their  harvest. 

In  speaking  of  the  new  comer  to  Amer- 
ica, Hon.  Franklin  K.  Lane,  Secretary  of 
the  Interior,  said:  "A  scramble  for  a  liv- 
ing! Much  to  see,  but  no  one  to  interpret 
it  all.  So  thought  this  new  American. 
Then  the  padrone  came  forward  as  a 
savior.  Life  was  not  to  go  out  anyway. 
And,  with  others  in  like  situation,  possibly 
from  his  own  country,  equally  ignorant, 
equally  handicapped,  the  new  American 
starts  his  life.  It  takes  a  brave  and  a  very 
ambitious  man  to  lift  himself  out  of  such 
an  environment.  Easily  he  becomes  a  vic- 
tim to  the  shrewd,  predatory  padrone  or 


FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM        73 

boss.  He  falls  into  debt  and  becomes  mort- 
gaged to  ignorance  and  squalor  for  years. 
His  ideal  of  America  has  suffered  a 
change.  'And  is  this  freedom?'  he  says 
to  himself,  as  with  tired  back  he  bends  to 
his  work,  without  hope  that  the  burden  will 
be  lighter  to-morrow.  He  cannot  read  the 
signs  which  warn  him  of  danger.  He  can 
not  read  of  the  opportunities  which  city 
and  country  offer.  In  his  own  land  per- 
haps he  had  no  chance  to  learn  in  his  own 
tongue.  In  this  new  land  he  is  too  tired, 
too  hesitant  to  learn  this  strange,  difficult 
tongue.  Is  it  any  wonder  if  to  this  dis- 
satisfied stranger  the  voice  of  one  who 
speaks  to  him  in  the  language  of  home  has 
authority  and  carries  far?  And  if  this 
voice  preaches  discontent,  and  violent  dis- 
content, as  the  one  sure  path  to  better  days, 
is  it  strange  that  he  should  listen?  Who 
are  the  men  who  master  this  new  world? 
Plainly  the  ones  he  knows,  from  whom 
he  has  suffered.  Do  these  same  men 
control  everything;  are  there  no  sweet 
places  of  refuge?  He  can  find  no  one  to 
make  him  see  the  greater  America,  The 
whole  of  this  continent  is  to  him  the 


74          THE  GBEAT  MENACE 

cramped  apartment,  the  dirty  street,  and 
the  sweatshop  or  the  factory.  To  the 
sweep  of  the  great  land  and  its  many 
beckonings  his  eyes  are  closed.  And  in 
his  isolation  and  ignorance  and  disap- 
pointment there  is  a  fruitful  nesting  place 
for  all  the  hurtful  microbes  that  attack 
society/'  Continuing,  Secretary  Lane 
spoke  these  momentous  words:  "This 
man  is  our  charge.  He  needs  and  deserves 
care,  solicitude,  thoughtful  consideration. 
Ignobly  put — it  will  pay.  More  manfully 
said — it  is  our  duty.  Worthily — it  is  our 
opportunity.  Economically  that  man  is  a 
potential  asset  which  we  should  not  waste. 
Give  him  a  glimpse  into  the  philosophy 
which  underlies  our  struggle  and  he  will 
turn  into  a  cheerful,  strong  fellow  worker 
in  the  making  of  America,  as  have  all  the 
rest  who  have  preceded  him.  It  is  money 
in  our  pockets  that  he  should  be  able  to  care 
for  himself;  that  he  should  know  our 
language ;  that  his  body  shall  be  well  nour- 
ished and  his  mind  hopeful."1 

Will  we  listen  to  the  voice  of  an  experi- 
enced observer  like  Secretary  Lane  or  to 

i  See  annual  report  of  Secretary  of  Interior,  1918. 


FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM        75 

that  of  the  man  who  says:    " Wrongs  will 
right  themselves"? 

Our  task  is  not  an  easy  one.  In  1882  a 
change  commenced  in  the  source  of  immi- 
gration, rapidly  growing,  until  now  71  per 
cent  of  our  immigration  comes  from  the 
Slavic  and  Iberic  countries  of  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe:  Italians,  Sicilians, 
Hungarians,  Hebrews,  Magyars,  Bohe^ 
mians,  Moravians,  Bulgarians,  Servians, 
Montenegrins,  Croatians,  Slovenians, 
Dalmatians,  Bosnians,  Herzegovnians, 
Slovaks,  Poles,  Lithuanians,  Germans, 
Russians.  For  guidance  in  reaching  this 
heterogeneous  people,  who  came  as 
strangers  to  American  institutions,  it  is 
helpful  to  keep  in  mind  that  the  steel  and 
iron  manufacturers  employ  58  per  cent  of 
foreign-born  helpers ;  the  slaughtering  and 
meat-packing  trades,  61  per  cent;  bitu- 
minous coal  mining,  62  per  cent;  the  silk 
and  dye  trade  34  per  cent;  glass-making 
enterprises,  38  per  cent;  woolen  mills,  62 
per  cent ;  cotton  factories,  69  per  cent ;  the 
clothing  business,  72  per  cent;  boot  and 
shoe  manufacturers,  27  per  cent;  leather 
tanners,  57  per  cent ;  furniture  factories,  59 


76  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

per  cent ;  glove  manufacturers,  33  per  cent ; 
cigar  and  tobacco  trades,  33  per  cent;  oil 
refiners,  67  per  cent ;  and  sugar  refiners,  85 
per  cent. 

Of  the  above  workers  25  per  cent  cannot 
even  read  or  write  their  own  language. 
This  was  a  ripe  field  at  one  time  for  dema- 
gogism,  now  it  is  the  ripened  field  of  bol- 
shevism, — that  because  as  a  people  we 
listened  to  the  teaching  that  "time  will 
cure,"  or  were  indifferent — as  those  that 
are  dumb — to  the  appeals  for  educational 
and  religious  work  among  our  foreign-born 
people. 

I  am  not  forgetful  of  the  effective  work 
that  is  being  done  by  many  city  churches 
and  by  many  denominational  bodies  among 
our  immigrant  classes.  Social  settlement 
workers  have  also  rendered  service  of  in- 
calculable good.  But  all  this  work  is  piti- 
fully small  as  compared  with  the  great  and 
growing  need.  The  fault  is  not  with  the 
Church,  which  is  doing  practically  all  that 
is  being  done  in  this  work,  but  rather  the 
fault  is  with  those  who  have,  not  responded 
to  appeals  to  help  Americanize  our  foreign- 
born  population.  In  the  teeth  of  history 


FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM        77 

and  present  peril,  these  proponents  of 
ostrich-logic  could  be  heard  in  the  land, 
saying,  "Don't  talk  about  these  things. 
Conditions  will  right  themselves."  So 
have  they  sown  to  the  wind  and  we  are 
reaping  the  whirlwind. 

The  time-will-cure  policy  has  in  another 
way  put  black  spots  all  over  our  land,  the 
black  spots  of  illiteracy.  Facts  brought 
out  through  the  draft  have  helped  to  cor- 
rect the  figures  of  the  last  census.  The 
native-born  illiterates  outnumber  the  for- 
eign-born illiterates.  And  the  problems 
with  drafted  men  have  shown  that  illiter- 
acy in  America  is  a  matter  of  national  con- 
cern. Out  of  the  first  2,000,000  drafted 
men  200,000  "could  not  read  their  orders 
or  understand  them,  or  read  the  letters  sent 
them  from  home."  These  men  had  to  be 
held  in  camp  for  instruction  in  primary 
education  before  they  could  be  made  sol- 
diers, thus  adding  to  the  burden  of  our 
country  and  entailing  loss  of  time  when 
time  was  an  important  factor. 

'There  are  eight  and  a  half  million  per- 
sons in  the  United  States  over  ten  years  of 
age  who  cannot  read  English,  and  five  and 


78          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

one  half  millions  who  can  read  nothing,  not 
a  line  in  a  newspaper,  or  from  a  message 
of  the  President  or  from  the  acts  of  Con- 
gress, nor  a  word  of  the  Bible.  How  can 
such  people  understand  America  or  the 
meaning  of  the  momentous  time  in  which 
they  are  living?  How  can  they  discern  the 
sinister  designs  of  the  agents  of  disrup- 
tion: to  exploit  them  and  to  mislead  them! 
all  because  of  our  neglect  to  win  them 
to  intelligent  citizenship.  The  bolsheviki 
have  long  had  their  personal  workers 
among  them,  inciting  discontent  and 
preaching  socialism  as  the  panacea  for 
social  ills. 

Do  we  realize  the  vast  influence  and 
power  represented  by  our  illiterate  citi- 
zenry? This  people,  whom  the  socialists 
are  working  to  control,  outnumber  Can- 
ada's whole  population,  and  exceed  the 
combined  populations  of  Maine,  Vermont, 
New  Hampshire,  Rhode  Island,  Connecti- 
cut, Maryland,  Delaware,  Florida.  Idaho, 
Nevada,  Montana,  Wyoming,  Arizona, 
North  Dakota,  South  Dakota,  and  Colo- 
rado. These  unfortunate  people  are 
human  even  as  we  are  human,  are  suscepti- 


FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM        79 

ble  just  as  we  are  susceptible  to  the  per- 
suasion of  the  man  who  gains  personal 
hearing.  Are  we  to  leave  them  a  prey  to 
the  intrigues  of  disguised  revolutionists? 
Mr.  Van  H.  Manning,  the  Director  of  the 
Bureau  of  Mines  and  Mining,  referring  to 
"considerable  unrest  in  the  mining  in- 
dustry during  the  war,''  said,  "  Certain 
radical  elements,  whose  gospel  is  violence, 
interfered  considerably  with  the  output  at 
a  time  when  the  country  was  in  dire  need 
of  their  service.  Outside  of  the  leaders  of 
these  men,  whose  intelligence  consisted  of 
cunning  and  preying  upon  the  ignorance  of 
•other  men,  this  movement  obtained  what- 
ever prominence  it  had  through  the  ignor- 
ant, illiterate  foreign-born,  those  who  came 
from  the  most  oppressed  sections  of  the 
world  and  whose  battles  America  was  en- 
deavoring to  fight. ' ' l 

The  gospel  of  violence  has  also  been 
carried  to  our  native-born  illiterates,  in 
whatever  industry  they  are  found,  also  to 
the  hospitable  and  credulous  people  of  the 
mountains.  The  radicals,  with  the  quiet  of 

i  Statement  to  Committee  on  Education,  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, Feb.  15,  1919. 


80          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

ground  moles,  have  burrowed  their  way  to 
our  very  homes,  and  now  are  telling  us  that 
they  have  done  so,  and  that  the  future  is 
theirs.  But  dense  ignorance,  the  field  of 
their  first  success,  does  not  secure  the 
future.  The  bolshevist  Utopias  do  not 
thrive  in  the  light  of  intelligence.  Here 
then  is  a  work  that  needs  to  be  done,  and 
that  needs  to  be  done  now. 

The  economic  loss  through  illiteracy  is 
a  consideration.  The  Secretary  of  the  In- 
terior estimates  that  if  the  productive 
labor  value  of  an  illiterate  is  less  by  only  50 
cents  a  day  than  that  of  an  educated  man  or 
woman,  the  country  is  losing  $825,000,000 
a  year  through  illiteracy.  The  estimate  by 
Mr.  Herbert  Kaufman  is  that  we  can  safely 
figure  the  labor  of  an  illiterate  worth  $5 
a  week  less  than  that  of  a  man  who  can 
read;  and  that  eight  million  informed  peo- 
ple would  yield  the  nation  $2,000,000,000 
annually  in  excess  of  present  earnings  from 
this  class,— "which  $2,000,000,000  annually 
would  not  only  pay  the  interest  on  our  war 
debt,  but  will  soon  amortize  it  as  well."  1 

i  Digest  in  re  Smith-Bankhead  Americanization  Bill, 
Committee  on  Education,  House  of  Representatives,  Feb- 
ruary 15,  1919. 


FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM        81 

The  economic  loss  appears  in  other  ways. 
Each  year  the  Federal  Government  spends 
millions  of  dollars  in  trying  to  give  helpful 
information  to  the  people  of  the  rural  dis- 
tricts about  improved  ways  of  farming, 
stock-raising  and  home-making.  Yet  10 
per  cent  of  the  country  f oik  for  whom  these 
millions  are  spent  cannot  read  a  word  of 
any  communication  sent  to  them,  nor  read 
a  word  in  a  farm  paper,  or  on  a  bulletin 
placed  at  the  road  side.  Certain  it  is  also 
that  eight  and  a  half  million  people  never 
read  a  line  of  any  advertisement,  and  are 
never  in  the  market  for  anything  in  print, 
however  practically  helpful  and  informing 
it  may  be. 

The  annual  accidents  and  fatalities  in  in- 
dustries are  attributed  mainly  to  ignor- 
ance and  lack  of  training.  Reports  show 
that  the  non-English  speaking  miners  suf- 
fer twice  the  fatalities  that  the  English- 
speaking  miners  do,  resulting  in  930  more 
killed  and  69,750  more  injured  annually, — 
which  represents  a  wage  loss  of  $1,743,750; 
or  through  including  the  State  compensa- 
tion for  deaths  of — an — average  $3,000 
each,  represents  an  economic  loss  each  year 


82 

of  $4,533,750  in  one  industry.  This  esti- 
mate does  not  include  the  loss  to  the  in- 
dustry in  added  cost  of  production.  Here 
is  something  to  think  about  when  the 
winter's  fire  is  low  and  we  are  bewailing 
the  high  price  of  coal.  Such  excess  of  acci- 
dents and  deaths  among  the  non-English 
speaking  miners  may  seem  unnecessary— 
and  almost  unthinkable — but  the  fact 
stands,  the  record  is  recurrent. 

This  is  not  an  hour  for  the  time-will- 
cure  philosophy.  Illiteracy  with  its  cer- 
tain attendant  sufferings,  economic  loss, 
perils  and  handicap  ought  to  be  removed, 
both  for  the  welfare  of  State  and  for  the 
salvation  and  human  interests  of  these 
people.  Day  schools  ought  to  be  strength- 
ened. Mission  schools  of  churches  ought 
to  be  multiplied.  And  the  moonlight 
school,  the  night  school,  and  the  shop 
school — whatever  will  meet  the  need — 
ought  to  be  supported.  Sympathy  too  is 
needed;  the  touch  of  the  man  or  woman 
having  the  true  American  spirit,  and  in 
whose  feelings  and  friendship,  ideals  and 
ideas,  the  unlettered  will  find  light,  and 
leading,  and  inspiration.  That  is  a  work 


FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM        83 

that  will  make  for  an  enduring  democracy. 
These  people,  often  soul  starved,  need  to 
receive  of  our  hearts  as  well  of  our  heads, 
—not  patronage,  not  "for  the  unco'  bad  by 
the  unco '  good, ' '  but  as  from  fellow  human- 
kind, fellow  Americans  and  fellow  children 
of  God.  Must  we  not  also  enlarge  national 
and  state  plans  for  education?  To  that 
end,  indeed  if  the  present  (inadequate) 
educational  force  is  to  be  maintained, 
teachers  must  be  meted  justice.  Teachers 
in  the  main  are  not  self-seeking,  and  are 
satisfied  with  teaching  as  their  reward,  but 
they  must  receive  a  living  wage.  Any 
other  policy  is  short  sighted,  and  dire  re- 
sults will  attend  it. 

The  statistics  cited  from  the  last  census 
on  illiteracy  unquestionably  understate  the 
condition  of  to-day.  The  Surgeon-General 
of  the  Army  only  recently  made  public  the 
results  of  the  test  applied  for  literacy,  the 
test  being  a  simple  one :  merely  the  reading 
of  an  American  newspaper  and  the  writing 
of  a  letter  home.  Yet  24.9  per  cent  or  one 
in  every  four  of  our  fine  American  men 
failed  to  pass  the  test.  The  number  of  ill- 
iterates has  increased  since  the  last  census 


84          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

by  natural  increase  in  population  and  by 
influx  of  immigration.  Here  the  bolshe- 
viki  find  soil  suited  to  the  seed  of  their 
sowing.  The  question  now  is  not  what  can 
be  said  in  defense  of  a  world-leading  de- 
mocracy wherein  10  to  24  per  cent  of  its 
people  cannot  read  its  laws,  but  what 
can  be  done  for  preserving  that  democracy! 
The  futility  of  the  let-alone  policy  is  also 
shown  by  what  it  has  not  accomplished  with 
the  negro  population.  Since  the  franchise 
was  given  negroes,  whose  training  for  that 
trust  was  a  century  of  ignorance,  lust  and 
superstition,  what  has  happened?  Did  the 
gift  of  the  ballot,  which  they  could  not  read, 
qualify  them  as  citizens!  Has  time 
evolved  the  needed  qualities?  Has  time 
solved  the  negro  problem?  Instead,  time 
has  intensified  it.  The  negroes  have  grown 
in  number  more  rapidly  than  their  white 
neighbors.  Whenever  negroes  held  politi- 
cal supremacy,  ruin  and  bankruptcy  fol- 
lowed. They  have  not  fulfilled  the  pro- 
phecy that  they  would  rise  as  a  race  to 
great  mentality.  Under  the  let-alone 
policy  they  have  developed  criminal  pos- 
sibilities and  qualified  as  dangerous  classes. 


FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM        85 

"In  1913  Chicago 's  2  per  cent  negro  popu- 
lation furnished  6.9  per  cent  of  the  total 
arrests,  14.6  per  cent  of  the  arrests  for 
larceny,  27.8  per  cent  of  the  arrests  for 
assault  with  deadly  weapons,  9.3  per  cent 
of  the  convictions  for  felonies  and  14  per 
cent  for  misdemeanors.  In  Cincinnati,  in 
1912,  the  5  per  cent  negro  population  furn- 
ished 19.5  per  cent  of  the  deaths  from  pul- 
monary tuberculosis,  9.54  per  cent  of  the 
total  mortality,  33.27  per  cent  of  the  work- 
house inmates,  22  per  cent  of  all  city  hos- 
pital admissions,  19.88  per  cent  of  the  de- 
pendent children  handled,  33  per  cent  of 
delinquent  children  handled  and,  in  1913, 
35  per  cent  of  the  registered  prostitutes. 
.  .  .  Another  fact  of  great  importance 
should  be  considered.  The  negro  as  a  race 
has  not  the  loyalty  to  our  national  institu- 
tions which  he  had  forty  years  ago.  This 
is  not  strange.  It  is  due  to  disappointed 
hopes  and  expectations/'1 

The  National  Security  League  recently 
issued  a  report,2  which  is  the  result  of  a 
two-year  investigation  in  the  South  by 

1  See  Editorial  Page,  Chicago  Daily  News,  February 
19,  1919. 

2  August,  1919. 


86          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

Dean  L.  B.  Moore,  who  says:  "The 
Southern  States,  with  their  seething  mil- 
lions of  restless  negro  population,  are  be- 
coming potential  volcanoes.  The  recent 
action  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  in  admitting  colored  men  to  its 
organization  was  taken  because  the  blacks 
are  being  organized  by  the  Industrial 
Workers  of  the  World.  Never  before  have 
I  known  such  sensitiveness  in  a  situation  as 
I  now  discern  in  the  racial  relations  in  the 
South.  I  have  found  a  suspicious  and 
latent  hostility  that  seems  amazingly  im- 
possible. Any  blind  man,  knowing  the 
conditions  in  the  South,  could  plainly  see 
what  is  likely  to  result  in  a  few  years  un- 
less educational  conditions  are  bettered. 
The  confusion  following  the  Civil  War  will 
be  nothing  compared  with  what  we  shall 
have  here.  Frankly,  we  are  in  danger  of 
having  a  little  Russia  in  many  sections  of 
the  Southland.  The  false  teachers  to-day 
who  are  encouraging  lawlessness  are  in  a 
large  measure  responsible  for  the  exodus  of 
negro  labor  to  the  North.  The  race  riots 
are  the  products  of  a  spirit  of  contempt  for 
law  joined  to  ignorance." 


FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM        87 

The  "negro  problem"  is  the  white  man's 
problem, — and  is  now  in  the  North  just  as 
it  has  long  been  in  the  South  and  the  great 
Middle  West.1  The  clashes  in  northern 
cities,  illy  concealed  antagonism,  demands 
for  separate  schools  in  those  centers  where 
negro  migration  has  largely  increased  the 
negro  population — all  these  show  that  the 
negro  problem  is  no  longer  sectional,  but 
is  national  and  demands  attention  as  of 
common  concern. 

Emotional,  mainly  illiterate,  grievances 
both  real  and  imagined,  the  negroes  have 
been  easily  moved  to  suspicion,  indifference 
and  antagonism  by  the  teachers  of  violence 
who  seek  the  overthrow  of  the  present  so- 
cial order  that  the  bolshevist  class  may 
rule. 

It  is  no  longer  merely  a  question  of  help- 
ing the  negroes  but  also  of  helping  our 
country  and  saving  ourselves.  Here  again 
time  has  not  cured.  Lynchings  have  not 
cured,  but  have  added  fuel  to  flame.  By 
that  method,  the  innocent  frequently  pay 
penalty  for  the  guilty.  Then  the  negroes, 
moved  by  resentment  and  fear,  reason, 

i  Of  the  1 1  million  negroes  in  the  United  States,  one- 
fourth  live  in  the  North. 


88          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

"Honesty  doesn't  protect.  Who  will  be 
the  next!" 

Education  and  religion  are  the  only 
means  of  taking  the  negroes  out  of  the 
range  of  criminal  possibilities,  and  of  mak- 
ing them  loyal  and  industrious  citizens. 
Dr.  A.  Eugene  Thomson,  Principal  of  the 
Lincoln  Institute  of  Kentucky,  made  a 
study  of  ten  prominent  colored  schools  in 
the  South.  Some  had  been  graduating 
classes  for  thiry-five  years.  Altogether 
they  had  graduated  7,769  students.  Ask- 
ing how  many  of  their  graduates  had  ever 
been  convicted  of  a  criminal  offense — that 
is,  anything  involving  a  penalty  from  a  jail 
sentence  upward — he  found  that  seven  of 
the  ten  schools  had  a  clean  record.  The 
reports  showed  ten  out  of  7,769,  or  less 
than  one-eighth  of  1  per  cent,  convicted. 

Lincoln,  Hampton,  Tuskegee  and  similar 
schools  have  demonstrated  the  value  of 
vocational  training  of  negroes,  under 
Christian  auspices.  Through  many  years 
these  schools  have  turned  out  large  num- 
bers of  men  and  women  who  have  "made 
good"  as  industrious,  law-abiding  Christian 
citizens.  This  is  a  work  that  pays  many- 


FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM        89 

fold.  To  quote  Edward  T.  Leach,  Editor 
of  the  Memphis  Press,  "  Leaving  out  all 
sentiment,  if  you  want  to  look  at  it  in  a 
cold  blooded  way,  which  is  the  more  valu- 
able to  the  community  in  dollars  and  cents, 
which  will  cost  the  State  less,  a  good  negro 
or  a  bad  one?" 

Is  it  not  the  indisputable  conclusion  that 
the  solution  of  the  negro  problem  is  Chris- 
tian education  and  vocational  training? 
Various  church  Boards  of  Freedmen  are 
doing  just  such  work.  The  United  States 
Bureau  of  Education  reports  6,258  schools 
for  the  higher  education  of  negroes,  mainly 
supported  by  Northern  churches  and  phi- 
lanthropy at  a  cost  of  $3,000,000.  Many 
of  the  schools  are  known  as  " colleges," 
but  75  per  cent  of  the  87,000  pupils  are  in 
elementary  grades,  11,500  in  secondary 
departments  and  only  1,500  are  real  college 
students. 

The  Southern  states  are  doing  a  large 
work,  spending  often  a  larger  percentage 
of  State  income  than  do  other  states;  and 
spending  yearly  about  one-third  of  a  mil- 
lion dollars  on  industrial  and  normal 
schools  for  negroes.  Yet,  all  told,  school 


90          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

provision  is  not  adequate  to  the  needs. 
About  43  per  cent  of  negro  children  be- 
tween the  ages  of  six  and  fourteen  are 
unprovided  for.  Southern  states  report 
that  50  per  cent  of  all  negro  public  school 
teachers  had  less  than  six  elementary 
grades  of  schooling,  and  that  in  the  rural 
districts,  where  75  per  cent  of  the  race 
live,  the  number  of  poorly  prepared 
teachers  is  much  larger.  Under  such  con- 
ditions, is  it  surprising  that  negroes  com- 
prise 40  per  cent  of  the  illiterates  of  the 
United  States? 

Another  particular  evidence  of  the  need 
of  Christian  education  for  these  people  is 
their  clergy.  Every  year  calls  for  1500 
new  negro  pastors  to  fill  vacancies  caused 
by  death  and  old  age.  But  all  the  schools 
and  colleges  of  our  country,  South,  North, 
East,  and  West  can  not  supply  a  full  300 
educated  men, — which  means  that  1200  un- 
educated "ministers"  take  their  places  as 
negro  leaders.  Too  often  this  means  "the 
blind  leading  the  blind,"  inflammatory 
speeches,  the  exciting  of  race  prejudice,  in- 
dolence, moral  laxness,  and  economic  loss, 
— all  of  which  make  favoring  conditions 


FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM        91 

for  bolshevist  propaganda.  Ex-President 
Taft  recently  deplored  such  leadership  and 
also  referred  to  another  class  of  negro 
leaders  who  "are  wiser,"  and  who  "see 
that  the  way  to  ameliorate  conditions  is  not 
by  direct  frontal  attacks  of  resentment  or 
revenge  but  by  the  education  of  their 
people  and  a  stimulation  of  them  to 
greater  industry  and  economic  success."  * 

To  educate  negro  leaders — teachers  and 
ministers — who  will  lead  their  people  in  or- 
derly, industrious  and  Christian  ways  is  an 
urgent  need  of  the  hour.  Certain  it  is  that 
the  let-alone  policy  with  the  negro  popula- 
tion will  get  us  nowhere — except  into 
trouble. 

The  negroes  must  be  taught  how  to  work 
with  their  hands  and  that  work  is  honor- 
able. They  must  be  given  Christian  edu- 
cation and  vocational  training.  And  too 
the  negro  must  be  given  a  square  deal,  and 
recognized  as  a  human  being  and  an  au- 
thenticated child  of  God.  We  must  inter- 
pret America  in  the  terms  of  fair  play, 
justice  and  humanity,  insisting  on  return 
in  kind.  That  is  Americanization  in  the 

i  Cincinnati  Enquirer,  June  2,  1919. 


92          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

concrete;  that  is  Christianity  practically 
applied.  And  in  this  particular  there  is 
no  other  way  out. 

In  these  illustrations  which  show  that 
time  does  not  cure,  we  directly  face  certain 
conditions  that  foster  the  Great  Menace, 
and  that  must  be  changed  if  that  peril  is  to 
be  removed.  Our  foreign-born  citizenry, 
illiterates,  and  negroes,  however,  are  not 
the  only  ones  who  have  been  seduced  by 
socialism.  Many  sincere,  noble-minded 
people  have  been  enticed  to  its  pale  by  as- 
surances of  an  immediate  golden  age,  not 
knowing  that  instead  of  a  golden  age  it 
means  •  an  age  washed  urith  blood,  a 
despotism  of  the  most  ruthless  order. 
These  innocent  converts  to  socialism  have 
believed  it  a  creed  of  peace, — and  so  it 
once  was,  and  now  is  with  men  of  peace. 
But  other  leaders  have  usurped  control; 
socialism  has  been  perverted  to  the  tool  of 
a  self-seeking  group  of  a  class  and  advo- 
cates of  violence.  Socialism  as  a  peace- 
ful proposal  for  economic  or  other  re- 
forms has  right  to  speak  and  right  to  be 
heard  in  a  free  country.  In  that  event 
we  have  only  to  point  out  that  wherever  it 


FAVORING  BOLSHEVISM        93 

has  been  tried  it  has  added  to  the  miseries 
of  humankind,  instead  of  mitigating  them. 
But  now  if  socialism  comes  to  us  with 
peaceful  proposals,  it  also  comes  with 
blood  upon  its  hands  and  with  sinister  pur- 
poses in  its  thoughts.  Even  the  "parlor 
socialists"  are  despised  by  the  proletarian 
socialists  who  alone  expect  to  rule.  Any 
persons  who  are  a  little  educated  are  ab- 
horred as  intellectuals.  Parts  of  Russia 
are  mortuaries  for  slaughtered  intelli- 
gentsia. It  is  not  necessary  to  substanti- 
ate this  statement.  No  truth  of  what  has 
happened  in  Russia  under  bolshevism  is 
more  conspicuous.  However,  I  wish  to 
make  reference  to  one  recent  publication, 
"Under  the  Bolshevik  Reign  of  Terror,"  * 
by  a  young  Englishwoman,  Miss  Rhoda 
Power,  who  relates  her  experiences  in  the 
south-Russian  town  of  Rostof,  where  she 
lived  from  early  in  the  war  until  after  the 
Bolsheviki  came  into  power.  She  tells  of 
what  she  personally  knew,  and  describes  at 
length  the  excesses  of  the  Red  Guard.  A 
part  of  the  story  is  in  the  form  of  a  diary, 
from  which  are  the  following  excerpts: 

i  McBride  &  Co.,  publishers,  New  York. 


94  THE  GREAT  MENACE 

' « March  3.  Blood,  blood,  blood.  March  5. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  road  a  student  was 
walking.  '  Ha, '  cried  a  tovarish,  another  of 
the  intelligentsia.  'So  you  will  educate 
yourself  above  the  people,  will  you? 
There.'  And  he  shot  him  through  the 
head.  The  boy  fell  with  a  little  cry,  and 
before  he  was  quite  dead  his  clothes  were 
taken  off  and  sold  to  a  passing  peasant." 
The  unreasoning  prejudice  against  the  '  *  in- 
tellectuals ' '  which  prevails  in  Russia  pre- 
vails also  with  the  bolsheviki  in  America. 

When  the  spirit  of  this  movement  in 
America  is  uncovered,  we  find  that  its  pur- 
pose is  autocracy,  rule  by  a  group  of  a 
class.  Once  in  power,  would  any  man's 
blood  be  held  dear?  Even  the  farmers 
here,  as  in  Russia,  would  be  classed  among 
the  intellectuals,  denied  equal  voice  in 
government,  and  would  be  ruled  by  despots. 
But  such  regime  cannot  be  when  the  Amer- 
ican people  are  fully  aroused  to  what  the 
radicals  are  trying  to  bring  to  pass. 

The  encouragement  in  the  crisis  of  the 
present  time  is  our  faith  in  the  people,  the 
vast  majority  of  whom  desire  to  know  the 
right  and  to  do  right.  We  should  disillu- 


FAITH  IN  THE  PEOPLE         95 

sion  those  who  have  been  misled.  And  we 
should  do  our  work  in  the  mighty  confi- 
dence that  the  moral  sense  and  common 
sense  of  the  people  can  be  depended  on  to 
do  right  and  to  defend  the  right.  Though 
faith  in  individuals  and  in  groups  of  men 
is  tried,  we  yet  must  have  faith  in  human- 
kind. Now,  a  word  as  to  our  ground  for 
this  belief.  Man  is  a  being  with  a  dual 
nature.  Do  we  not  all  confess  to  a  down- 
ward pull,  to  a  tendency  to  indulgence,  and 
to  yield  to  lusts  and  passion,  selfish  ambi- 
tion, personal  aggrandizement  and  power? 
Every  one  who  has  dared  to  choose  the 
good  as  the  goal  of  life,  knows  only  too  well 
that  evil  is  present  with  him.  Why  do 
we  not  also  acknowledge  that  in  every  one 
is  the  upward  impulse,  aspiring  for  things 
noble,  pure,  beautiful  and  true,  for  the  ex- 
perience of  service  and  the  expression  of 
kindness,  love  and  selfless  devotion?  In 
all  is  the  good,  and  no  one  is  so  bad  as  not 
to  have  impulses  to  follow  it.  This  is  a 
teaching  that  needs  to  be  emphasized  in 
present-day  thinking,  for  it  is  a  truth  that 
in  certain  places  has  suffered  eclipse. 
There  is  good  even  in  "bad  people"  to 


96          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

which  one  can  make  successful  appeal. 
Various  fields  of  moral  and  religious  ac- 
tivity in  recent  years  bear  testimony  to 
this  fact.  The  work  with  juvenile  delin- 
quents in  Boy  Republics  and  Parental  Re- 
publics, and  of  Judge  Lindsey  in  Denver 
shows  that  appeal  to  the  good  in  "bad 
boys"  is  often  successful.  Dr.  Bernardo  or- 
ganized the  system  for  taking  boy  criminals 
out  of  the  slums  of  the  great  cities  of  Eng- 
land, and  sending  them  to  farms  in  Aus- 
tralia, South  Africa,  and  Canada.  Out  of 
50,000  such  boys  who  were  given  a  new 
chance  through  the  farm  environment  less 
than  two  per  cent,  according  to  Dr.  Ber- 
nardo, have  shown  any  tendency  to  revert 
to  their  earlier  criminal  practices. 

The  testimony  that  comes  from  the  field 
of  criminology  is  further  illustration  of  the 
fact  of  good  in  "bad  people,"  even  in  the 
criminal  classes.  Prison  reform  and  new 
methods  of  penology  have  converted  prison 
places  of  torture  into  moral  hospitals. 
Outstanding  is  the  work  of  Lombroso  in 
Italy,  of  Thomas  Mott  Osborne  and  Maud 
Ballington  Booth  in  America,  in  reclaiming 
many  mature  criminals,  who  in  time  past 


FAITH  IN  THE  PEOPLE         97 

would  have  been  regarded  as  hopelessly 
hardened.  And  too  the  experiences  of 
thousands  of  ministers  in  the  conversion 
of  "hopeless  cases,"  morally  speaking, 
also  testifies  to  the  good  in  "bad  folks." 
Much  more  then  is  our  ground  for  faith 
in  the  people,  the  law  abiding  of  our  land! 
History  shows  that  they  always  could  be 
trusted,  that  they  always  could  be  depended 
on.  The  people  are  our  confidence  in  the 
crisis  of  the  present,  and  our  assurance  for 
a  continued  orderly  society  in  the  future. 
When  the  purpose  of  the  Great  Menace  is 
fully  known  it  will  meet  their  united  op- 
position. The  people  will  not  tolerate  the 
red  flag,  nor  allow  any  hyphenated  flag. 
Americans  love  dearer  than  life  the  Amer- 
ican flag.  They  have  sung: 

"Flag  of  the  brave!  thy  folds  shall  fly, 
The  sign  of  hope  and  triumph  high."  x 

If  necessary  the  American  people  will 
again  fight  to  keep  Old  Glory  waving  high. 

It  would  be  unfortunate  for  "labor" 
and  for  our  country  if  the  radicals  of  labor 
are  permitted  to  effect  strained  relations 

i  Joseph  Rodman  Drake,  The  American  Flag. 


98          THE  GREAT  MENACE 

and  suffering  conditions  that  ultimately 
must  precipitate  trouble.  As  a  people  we 
wish  to  avoid  bloodshed ;  but  we  will  main- 
tain at  any  cost  our  country's  honor  and 
an  orderly  society  for  the  sake  of  our  chil- 
dren and  the  common  good. 

The  sane  and  major  part  of  "labor"  is 
not  in  sympathy  with  soviet  radicals, — this 
we  must  keep  in  mind.  The  following  ex- 
cerpt from  an  editorial  in  the  Labor 
Herald  1  is  typical,  I  believe,  of  the  sound, 
good  sense  of  labor  people  in  the  main: 
"The  soviet  fanatics  nowadays  seek  to 
superimpose  the  soviet  idea  in  every  situa- 
tion where  there  is  a  conflict  between 
workers  and  employers.  .  .  Democracy 
offers  the  best  chance  for  the  most  people 
to  have  a  say  about  how  things  are  run. 
That  is  the  reason  why  the  soviet  is  a 
dead  duck  in  America.  The  soviet  fanat- 
ics who  think  they  can  put  over  their  idea 
in  America  have  it  in  their  heads  that  if 
they  can  do  that  then  their  little  group 
can  run  things.  Whatever  may  be  the  true 
definition  of  a  soviet,  the  definition  that  is 
in  the  minds  of  its  supporters  on  this  side 

i  Newport,  Ky.,  July  10,  1919. 


FAITH  IN  THE  PEOPLE         99 

of  the  Atlantic  is  a  machine  that  will  bring 
about  a  'dictatorship  of  the  proletariat,' 
which  means  by  a  small  group  of  workers 
who  happen  to  agree  upon  the  idea.  .  . 
Democracy  is  a  winner  against  anything 
the  world  knows  about  in  the  way  of  gov- 
ernments. It  gives  the  most  people  a 
chance  for  a  say.  The  thing  that  Lenine 
and  Trotsky  dare  not  do  is  to  give  the  most 
people  a  say.  Only  if  democratic  peoples 
let  their  democracy  slip  away  from  them 
is  there  any  need  to  fear  for  them.  And 
they  haven't  done  that  yet!  Some  day 
we'll  look  at  soviet  propaganda  through 
glass  cases  in  long  marble  corridors  in 
buildings,  over  the  doors  of  which  we  will 
read  the  word  'museums.'  " 

The  dependableness  of  the  people  gives 
ground  for  confidence.  At  the  same  time 
we  acknowledge  that  wrongs  do  not  right 
themselves.  Time  does  not  cure.  The 
people  look  to  the  leaders  to  lead.  We 
must  make  known  the  intent  of  socialism, 
which  will  languish  and  perish  in  the  sun- 
light of  truth.  Before  us  too  is  the  impera- 
tive need  of  removing  illiteracy,  of  Amer- 
icanizing our  foreign-born  population,  and 


100        THE  GREAT  MENACE 

of  providing  Christian  education  and  voca- 
tional training  for  the  negroes ;  so  shall  we 
dig  out  the  big  roots  of  the  Great  Menace, 
which  has  got  to  go.  Otherwise  democracy 
ciannot  live. 


IV 

THE   NEW   PATRIOTISM 

' '  Work  or  starve. 
Save  or  want. 

Play  together  or  you'll  play  hell. 
Be  a  good  American  or  get  out. ' ' 1 

IN  the  light  of  world  changes  and  menacing 
internal  conditions  in  our  country,  certain 
great  ideas  and  principles  have  suddenly 
assumed  profound  significance.  These 
ideas  and  principles,  if  not  new,  appeal  to 
loyal  Americans  with  a  new  emphasis,  and, 
therefore,  may  concisely  be  called  the  new 
patriotism.  What  are  the  great  convic- 
tions that  suddenly  have  forced  themselves 
in  upon  the  minds  of  men  with  such  pro- 
found significance? 

I.  We  can  best  approach  the  question  by 
stating  first  what  the  new  patriotism  is  not. 

1.  At  the  outset  of  this  part  of  the  dis- 
cussion we  may  affirm  that  the  new  patriot- 
ism is  not  internationalism.  Unless  a  man 
is  first  loyal  to  his  own  home,  he  is  not  loyal 

i  Saturday  Evening  Post,  October  4,  1919,  p.  ?9. 
J01 


102         THE  GEEAT  MENACE 

to  the  community.  Similarly  with  nations. 
How  can  any  country  be  worthy  of  a  place 
in  the  council  of  nations  except  by  a  worthy 
and  law-abiding  citizenry?  The  urgency 
of  world  peace  requires  fidelity  to  one's 
country.  That  fidelity  does  not  overlook 
the  burning  hope  of  men  that  the  vision  of 
Tennyson  in  Locksley  Hall  may  be  re- 
alized : 

' '  The  war-drum  throbb  'd  no  longer,  and  the  bat- 
tle-flags were  furl'd 

In  the  Parliament  of  man,  the  Federation  of  the 
world." 

We  cannot  forget  the  appalling  cost  of 
maintaining  the  free  governments  of  peo- 
ple: 26  million  casualties,  11  million  men 
killed,  and  221  billion  dollars.  All  this 
must  not  have  been  in  vain.  The  Ameri- 
can people  ask  as  the  fruit  of  victory  that 
the  world  shall  be  protected  against  the 
repetition  of  such  a  catastrophe.  And  we 
honor  nations  of  like  mind  and  purpose, 
— but  that  is  not  reason  for  foolish  talk  of 
an  impossible  internationalism  where  our 
thought  for  other  nations  holds  equal  place 
as  for  our  own.  ' '  To  say  that  one  can  love 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM        103 

other  nations  as  well  as  one's  own  is  like 
saying,"  to  quote  words  spoken  by  Colonel 
Roosevelt  shortly  before  he  died,  "that  a 
man  can  love  other  women  equally  as  well 
as  he  loves  his  wife." 

2.  In  the  second  place  the  new  patriotism 
is  not  materialism.  In  Germany  material 
forces  had  outgrown  spiritual  forces. 
Science  placed  great  physical  powers  in  the 
hands  of  the  German  nation,  but  conscience 
and  judgment  did  not  keep  pace  with  its 
intelligence.  Moral  and  spiritual  control 
were  lost,  and  the  wonderful  physical 
forces,  the  gift  of  science  to  the  German 
people,  were  turned  into  an  engine  of  de- 
struction, under  the  name  of  Kultur.  The 
American  people  cannot  live  alone  on 
things  material  any  better  than  the  German 
people  could  so  live.  "Without  spiritual 
guidance  and  moral  control  we  would  come 
to  grief  just  as  they  have  come  to  grief. 
This  does  not  belittle  science.  Science  is  a 
friend,  and  daily  brings  material  marvels 
for  the  health  and  comfort  of  men  and  the 
advancement  of  civilization.  But  the  new 
physical  powers  can  wield  permanent  good 
and  build  a  nation  in  enduring  strength 


104         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

only  as  controlled  by  enduring  principles. 
All  this  has  been  demonstrated, — a  demon- 
stration forced  by  Germany,  and  for  which 
the  world  has  paid  the  price.  Our  present 
concern  is  to  apply  the  principle,  that  man 
cannot  live  by  the  material  alone,  to  our 
several  affairs  and  national  life.  Do  we 
place  the  common  good  above  personal 
gain?  Do  we  value  spiritual  possession 
more  than  material  possessions?  Is 
America's  satisfaction  in  the  quality  of 
men  that  it  breeds  or  in  the  material  wealth 
of  its  industries  and  material  splendor  of 
its  institutions?  Do  we  honor  men  for 
what  they  are  or  what  they  have?  What 
are  the  motives  that  impel  young  men  and 
women  in  choice  of  education  or  vocation  f 
Do  we  serve  God  or  Mammon?  Germany 
stood  for  materialism.  That  was  her 
faith,  law  and  life.  Materialism  is  with 
other  people  exactly  what  it  was  with  the 
German  people :  cruel,  selfish,  and  criminal. 
Suffering  and  ruin  always  attend  it.  The 
new  patriotism  is  not  materialism. 

3.  It  must  also  be  said  that  the  new  pa- 
triotism is  not  partisan.  It  affirms  that 
America  belongs  to  the  people;  that  we  do 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM       105 

not  have  and  must  not  have  class  rule  or 
class  preferment;  that  ours  is  a  Land  of 
Opportunity  for  all,  that  that  is  its  glory 
and  one  of  the  things  that  has  made  it  the 
greatest  nation  of  all  time. 

Greenville,  Tenn.,  is  a  little  town  two 
miles  long  and  one  street  wide.  Two 
signs,  one  at  either  end  of  that  street,  tell 
a  story  of  opportunity  that  lies  before  the 
feet  of  every  American  citizen.  At  one  end 
of  the  street  is  a  sign  over  a  tumbledown 
one-story  frame  shack  which  reads  "A. 
Johnson,  Tailor. ' '  At  the  other  end  of  the 
street,  shining  and  towering  high,  is  a 
marble  monument  on  which  is  the  inscrip- 
tion "A.  Johnson,  President  of  the  United 
States. "  From  an  ignorant  tailor  unable 
to  read  or  write  A.  Johnson  became  the  na- 
tion 's  chief  executive.  Where  such  a  thing 
is  possible,  there  can  be  no  class.  True, 
not  every  boy  can  become  President,  but 
there  is  the  chance  for  every  young  Amer- 
ican to  make  his  way  up  the  street  to  any 
worthy  goal  he  sets  for  himself  if  he  has 
the  will  to  win.  But  he  cannot  reach  it 
through  idleness  or  waste,  or  if  disheart- 
ened by  difficulties.  Emerson  said,  "  Dif- 
ficulties make  a  bright  boy  climb."  Long- 


106         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

fellow  voiced  the  American  sentiment  in 
saying : 

' '  The  heights  by  great  men  reached  and  kept 
Were  not  attained  by  sudden  flight, 
But  they,  while  their  companions  slept, 
Were  toiling  upward  in  the  night."  * 

The  new  patriotism  is  not  partisan. 
It  does  not  leave  us  in  the  dark,  though 
we  are  in  the  throes  of  great  problems. 
Our  methods  for  the  settling  of  problems 
are  the  methods  of  democracy, — the  meth- 
ods which  were  established  when  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  was  framed. 
At  that  time,  our  American  fathers  who 
framed  it  were  in  the  thick  of  problems  and 
could  not  visualize  the  future,  its  tremen- 
dous changes,  expansion  of  country,  in- 
dustrial development,  the  effect  of  inven- 
tions, influx  of  immigration,  and  increasing 
complexities  and  perplexities  in  social  rela- 
tions. They  could  not  forecast  all  that. 
But  they  were  united  in  the  conviction  that 
free  men  could  retain  the  powers  of  self- 
government  only  through  acceptance  of  the 
responsibilities  of  self-government  and  ad- 

i"The  Ladder  of  St.  Augustine." 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM       107 

herence  to  the  methods  of  democracy, 
(8»]/«>s  people  -f-  Kparetv  to  rule)  the  rule  of 
the  people.  By  those  methods  the  great 
problems  that  have  arisen  in  our  nation 
have  been  adjusted.  And  the  great  prob- 
lems in  our  country  to-day  will  be  settled  in 
the  same  satisfactory  way.  "The  Ameri- 
can people,"  declares  John  P.  Frey,  who 
was  a  member  of  the  American  Labor 
Mission  in  Europe  last  year,  "are  so  de- 
voted to  these  democratic  institutions,  so 
jealous  of  the  benefits  which  they  convey, 
that  they  had  already  placed  2,000,000 
Americans  on  French  soil  and  were  pre- 
pared to  place  millions  more,  so  that  the 
free  institutions  which  they  believed  in 
could  not  be  jeopardized  by  the  success  of 
the  autocratic,  militaristic  Central  Pow- 
ers.*'1 That  observation  by  a  leader  of 
labor  voices  the  sentiment  of  loyal  Amer- 
icans. They  will  stand  four-square  for 
democracy  which  does  not  admit  domi- 
nance of  a  class. 

The  new  patriotism  is  not  international- 
ism, not  materialism,  not  the  favoritism 
of,  or  rule  by,  a  class. 

i  Labor  Herald,  October  2,  1919,  pp.  1,  2. 


108         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

H.  This  brings  us  directly  to  our  main 
thought :  what  the  new  patriotism  is. 

1.  In  the  first  place  the  new  patriotism 
affirms  the   principle  of  interdependence. 
Our  lives  are  inter-related,  mutually  de- 
pendent,   bound    up    together.    We    must 
learn,  if  we  have  not,  how  to  live  on  with 
one  another,  each  considering  his  particu- 
lar interests  in  the  light  of  the  good  of  all. 
Labor  has  its  rights,  capital  has  rights, 
and  the  people  have  their  rights.    And  the 
rights  of  one  can  be  promoted  in  ways  of 
lasting  value  only  in  harmony  with  the 
common  rights  of  all.     Policy  or  conduct 
must  be  governed  by  its  effect  on  all  the 
people.    Any  other  policy  is  ruthless  ma- 
terialism. 

2.  The  new  patriotism  also  stands  for 
constructive  liberalism.    Impatience  with 
the  methods  and  aims  of  socialism,  and 
sometimes  with  the  unrest  and  unreasona- 
ble demands  of  certain  groups  of  labor 
has  had  a  tendency  to  make  many  persons 
become  reactionary.    But  that  would  be 
fatal  to  progress.     Reactionary  policy,  re- 
sort to  the  old  methods  of  industrial  des- 
potism, would  make  converts  to  bolshevism. 


A  democracy  cannot  consent  to  the  dic- 
tatorship of  capital  or  of  the  proletariat. 
The  extremists  on  both  sides  are  headed 
for  trouble.  They  too  are  making  trouble 
for  others,  resulting  in  discordant  condi- 
tions. That  is  the  sure  way  of  crystallizing 
public  sentiment  for  drastic  action,  if  not 
experiment,  and  taking  in  hand  the  trouble 
makers.  That  very  thing  will  be  done  if  it 
needs  to  be  done,  but  the  energy  thus  di- 
verted would  defer  the  day  of  the  common 
well-being  and  happiness  of  all.  The  sane 
way  is  to  face  problems  in  a  spirit  of  con- 
structive liberalism,  working  for  solution 
in  recognition  of  the  rights  of  all.  That 
will  mean  often  a  tremendous  task,  but  big 
undertakings  have  summoned  the  Ameri- 
can people  before, — and  will  inspire  them 
again.  Anything  can  be  done  that  ought 
to  be  done.  Surely  the  problems  of  our 
social  order  ought  to  be  solved,  to  the  end 
of  justice,  brotherhood,  and  good-will. 
Can  one  be  loyal  to  country  and  not  con- 
tribute by  sympathy  or  suggestion  to  the 
solution? 

3.  The    new    patriotism    also    includes 
merciful  helpfulness,  when  help  is  needed 


110        THE  GREAT  MENACE 

and  ought  to  be  meted.  The  bountiful 
gifts  from  men  and  women  through  the 
war,  best  of  all  the  merciful  giving  of  them- 
selves without  stint,  was  a  beautiful  touch 
that  helped  to  mitigate  the  horrors,  and 
gave  us  heart  to  bear  the  burdens,  of  those 
dark  hours.  Noble  inner  natures  came 
into  view.  In  the  light  of  that  merciful 
helpfulness,  we  also  saw  selfishness  as  a 
thing  hideous  and  loathsome, — selfishness 
that  yet  skulks  in  the  dark  or  masquerades 
in  honest  dress  but  always  with  murder  in 
its  thought.  However,  merciful  helpful- 
ness is  the  breath  and  soul  of  America,  and 
the  glory  of  the  new  patriotism. 

4.  This  brings  us  to  another  most  im- 
portant point  in  regard  to  the  new  patriot- 
ism, one  with  which  at  first  hearing  some 
persons  will  not  agree.  Yet,  no  word  is 
more  urgently  needed  in  this  time  of  un- 
rest— largely  awakened  and  fostered  by  the 
Great  Menace — and  no  one  word  in  the 
light  of  glaring  facts  is  more  transparently 
true  than  the  statement  that  if  one  is  to 
be  a  loyal  American  to-day  one  must  sup- 
port and  promote  the  moral  and  spiritual 
life  of  the  nation. 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM       111 

When  William  N,  Foster,  Secretary  of 
the  National  Committee  that  organized  the 
strike  of  the  steel  and  iron  workers,  was  a 
witness  before  the  Senate  Committee  which 
was  investigating  the  strike,1  Senator  Mc- 
Kellar,  in  addressing  the  witness,  said: 

"I  now  call  your  attention  to  page  18 
of  your  book  on  Syndicalism,  where  you 
say:  'The  Syndicalist  is  as  unscrupu- 
lous in  his  choice  of  weapons  to  fight  his 
every-day  battles  as  for  his  final  strug- 
gle with  capitalism.  He  allows  no  con- 
sideration of  'legality'  'religion'  'pa- 
triotism,' 'honor,'  'duty,'  and  so  forth, 
to  stand  in  the  way  of  his  adoption  of 
effective  tactics.  The  only  sentiment  he 
knows  is  loyalty  to  the  interests  of  the 
working  class.  He  is  in  utter  revolt 
against  capitalism  in  all  its  phases. 
His  lawless  course  often  lands  him  in 
jail,  but  he  is  so  fired  by  revolutionary 
enthusiasm  that  jails,  or  even  death, 
have  no  terrors  for  him.  He  glories  in 
martyrdom,  consoling  himself  with  the 
knowledge  that  he  is  a  terror  to  his 
enemies,  and  that  his  movements,  to-day 

i October  2,  1919. 


112         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

sending  chills  along  the  spines  of  interna- 
tional capitalism,  to-morrow  will  put  an 
end  to  this  monstrosity.'  Is  that  your 
belief  now?" 

Foster  answered:  "If  you  put  all 
those  terms  in  quotation  marks,  that 
stands. ' ' 

Think  of  it!  Here  is  a  leader  of  labor, 
a  member  of  a  national  committee  repre- 
senting several  hundred  thousand  work- 
ers in  the  steel  and  iron  industry 
and  that  organized  its  recent  strike, 
confessing  that  he  believes  it  his  duty  and 
the  duty  of  all  syndicalists  to  allow  no  con- 
siderations of  ' '  legality, "  ' '  religion, " ' '  pa- 
triotism," "honor"  or  "duty"  to  stand 
in  the  way  of  the  adoption  of  effective 
tactics  to  secure  their  ends.  When  groups 
of  labor  are  indoctrinated  with  that  sort 
of  teaching,  is  it  surprising  that  sovietism 
has  spread?  or  that  the  followers  of  that 
doctrine  are  opposed  to  religion?  For 
that  condition,  those  persons  who  believe 
otherwise,  but  who  do  nothing  to  promote 
the  moral  and  spiritual  life  of  the  nation 
are  heavily  responsible.  The  Church  has 
proclaimed  the  laws  of  God,  without  which 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM       113 

a  nation  cannot  stand,  and  which  now  are 
openly  defied, — but  that  work  has  not  been 
reasonably  sustained.  To  the  call  for  re- 
pentance and  religious  cooperation  vast 
multitudes  of  intelligent  people  have  been 
indifferent,  regardless  alike  of  the  perils 
of  country,  the  sufferings  of  their  fellows, 
and  the  reasonable  claims  of  the  Holy  God. 
The  poor,  benighted  foreign-born  in  Amer- 
ica, who  yielded  to  bolshevist  teaching 
were  misled, — that  is  their  excusing.  But 
vast  multitudes,  too  self-absorbed  in  the 
pursuit  of  gain  or  pleasure  to  thoughtfully 
consider  the  moral  and  spiritual  need  of 
the  nation  or  ever  to  read  a  labor  paper, 
knew  better.  Possibly  they  did  not  realize 
that  dire  consequences  would  follow  their 
conduct, — that  may  be  their  excusing. 
Will  they  retrieve  the  past  by  helping  to 
meet  the  moral  and  spiritual  need  of 
America  now? 

I  am  not  pleading  for  any  particular 
church  or  synagogue  or  ism  but  for 
spiritual  witness  and  service  somewhere. 
If  there  is  a  better  agency  than  the  Church 
for  doing  this  particular  work,  many  of  us 
would  like  to  know  it.  Until  other  agency 


114        THE  GREAT  MENACE 

is  found,  why  not  support  and  promote 
what  we  have? 

The  teaching  of  the  syndicalists  that 
they  are  to  be  "  unscrupulous  in  their 
choice  of  weapons,"  and  that  it  is  their 
duty  to  allow  "no  consideration  of  legality, 
religion,  patriotism,"  etc.  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  their  * '  adoption  of  effective  tactics ' ' 
in  obtaining  their  ends,  evinces  that  our 
fundamental  need  is  religion,  the  recovery 
of  the  ten  commandments,  a  revival  of  the 
things  of  God, — which  may  and  may  not 
mean  a  revival  of  revivalism.  It  does 
mean  a  revival  of  religion.  Other  con- 
ditions to-day  than  those  effected  by  the 
socialists  and  syndicalists  show  that  this  is 
true :  the  prevalence  and  open  insolence  of 
evil,  profiteers,  hoarding  of  goods  for  ef- 
fecting fictitious  prices,  unjust  wage  and 
unjust  wage  demands,  the  "coal  scandal," 
the  selfish  seizure  by  certain  persons  of 
every  possible  advantage  for  gain  in  ruth- 
less disregard  of  the  sufferings  of  one's 
fellows,  and  the  effort  to  fatten  upon  a 
great  national  calamity  like  the  last  war — 
that  too  when  loyal  American  sons  were 
sacrificing  business,  home  and  all  things 
that  democracy  might  not  perish  from  the 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM       115 

earth, — all  this  shows  the  imperative  need 
in  this  our  country  of  ' '  a  pure  and  undefiled 
religion. ' '  That  fact  stands  out  in  letters 
of  light  over  against  the  thick  darkness  of 
present  conditions  and  the  history  of  re- 
cent years. 

We  have  come  to  a  parting  of  the  ways. 
Shall  America  be  the  home  of  a  lived  re- 
ligion or  of  bolshevismf — that  is  the  ques- 
tion. By  promoting  or  not  promoting  the 
moral  and  spiritual  life  of  the  nation,  one 's 
answer  is  given.  It  is  a  point  of  honor 
now;  not  sentiment  but  patriotism.  No- 
tice is  served  that  the  ten  commandments 
and  all  religion  have  been  ruled  out. 
If  the  ruling  extends  and  remains,  democ- 
racy will  end,  the  way  will  be  open  to  vio- 
lence and  mob  rule.  The  time  has  come 
for  an  alignment  of  those  people  who  be- 
lieve that  the  laws:  "Thou  shalt  not 
kill,"  "Thou  shalt  not  steal,"  "Thou  shalt 
have  no  other  gods  before  me"  are  funda- 
mental to  civilization. 

That  America  requires  before  anything 
else  an  applied  religion  for  the  crisis  of 
to-day,  is  the  thought  recently — and  inde- 
pendently— expressed  by  three  American 


116         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

business  men,  nationally  known  and  whose 
judgments  are  valued  as  observers  of  na- 
tional conditions  and  world  movements. 
Robert  W.  Babson,  editor  of  Babson's 
Barometer  Letter  to  Merchants,  Bankers 
and  Investors,  Boston,  in  a  signed  edi- 
torial,1 said,  '  *  The  need  of  the  hour  is  not 
more  legislation.  The  need  of  the  hour  is 
more  religion.  More  religion  is  needed 
everywhere,  from  the  halls  of  Congress  at 
Washington,  to  the  factories,  mines,  fields 
and  forests.  It  is  one  thing  to  talk  about 
plans  and  policies,  but  a  plan  and  policy 
without  a  religious  motive  is  like  a  watch 
without  a  spring,  or  a  body  without  the 
breath  of  life.  The  trouble  to-day  is  that 
we  are  trying  to  hatch  chickens  from 
sterile  eggs.  We  may  have  the  finest  in- 
cubator in  the  world  and  operate  it  accord- 
ing to  the  most  approved  regulations; 
moreover,  the  eggs  may  appear  perfect 
specimens,  but  unless  they  have  the  germ 
of  life  in  them,  all  of  our  efforts  are  of  no 
avail.  .  .  .  The  solving  of  the  Labor  situ- 
ation is  wholly  a  question  of  religion.  The 
wage  worker  will  never  be  satisfied  with 

i  September  2,   1919. 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM       117 

higher  wages  and  shorter  hours,  any  more 
than  you  and  I  are  satisfied  with  more 
profits  and  a  bigger  house.  Things  never 
did  satisfy  any  one  and  never  will.  Satis- 
faction and  contentment  are  matters  of 
religion.  Communities  and  industries, 
where  right  motives  are  paramount,  have 
no  serious  labor  problems.  When  both 
employer  and  wage  worker  honestly  be- 
lieve that  we  are  here  in  this  world  to  serve 
others,  the  Labor  problem  will  be  solved, 
but  not  until  then.  We  employers  should 
learn  to  give  up,  and  labor  should  wake 
up.  However,  neither  of  us  will  do  it  ex- 
cept as  we  are  actuated  by  religious  mo- 
tives. Both  groups  are  largely  actuated 
by  selfish  motives  at  the  present  time. 
Moreover,  this  is  tremendously  short- 
sighted selfishness.  During  the  scramble 
over  a  division  of  what  is  already  produced, 
we  overlook  the  great  importance  of  in- 
creasing production,  thereby  cutting  down 
the  tree  to  get  the  cherries.  We  all  need 
a  new  outlook  of  life,  a  new  political  policy, 
a  new  industrial  policy,  and  a  new  social 
policy.  The  old  politics  founded  upon 
fear  and  striving  only  for  protection  has 


118         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

fulfilled  its  usefulness.  We  need  a  new 
politics  based  upon  faith  and  striving  for 
production.  Meanwhile,  what  is  happen- 
ing to  our  churches?  They  are  going  to 
seed.  They  are  already  deserted  by  the 
working  classes,  and  are  being  deserted  by 
the  children  of  the  employing  classes. 
Great  capital  investments  in  land  and 
buildings  are  being  utilized  only  a  few 
hours  a  week.  The  ministers  are  being 
paid  starvation  wages,  and  the  whole 
church  industry  lacks  pep  and  imagination. 
And  yet,  the  Church  is  the  only  organiza- 
tion in  existence  for  generating  right  mo- 
tives in  man.  Schools  develop  intellect, 
theaters  and  novels  foster  passion,  but  the 
Church  is  the  sole  organization  which  de- 
velops those  good  motives  of  love,  sym- 
pathy, hope  and  inspiration,  upon  which 
the  industrial  salvation  of  the  world  de- 
pends. .  .  .  But  that  great  organization 
which  has  the  machinery  and  opportunity 
to  develop  the  constructive  motives  of  love, 
sympathy  and  hope,  is  asleep.  .  .  .  When 
Jesus  told  His  disciples  to  'give  to  him 
that  asketh  of  thee'  He  did  not  mean  that 
they  should  die  of  starvation.  He  simply 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM       119 

tried  to  emphasize  the  great  fundamental 
truth  that  life  consists  not  in  hoarding  or 
living  on  what  is  hoarded ;  but  life  consists 
in  working  and  using  what  one  produces. 
It  was  Jesus'  method  of  calling  the  world's 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  things  which 
exist  are  temporary,  and  at  best  would 
keep  the  world  alive  only  a  few  months. 
He  wished  to  impress  upon  us  that  our 
future  depends  not  upon  hoarding  what  we 
have,  but  rather  on  producing  more.  He 
wished  to  direct  mankind's  attention  to- 
ward Faith  and  away  from  Fear;  toward 
Production  and  away  from  Protection. 
Politics  and  industries  need  to  get  Jesus' 
point  of  view,  which  is  both  economically 
and  psychologically  sound.  Labor  trou- 
bles would  soon  cease,  and  the  Cost  of  Liv- 
ing would  be  cut  in  halves.  Once  more  I 
say,  the  need  of  the  hour  is  religion." 

Mr.  Richard  H.  Edmonds,  editor  of  the 
Manufacturers'  Record,  Baltimore,  in  a 
signed  editorial,1  expressed  as  strong  con- 
victions, saying: 

"  Above  all  else  this  country  needs  a  na- 
tion-wide revival  of  old-fashioned  prayer 

i  August  28,  1919. 


120         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

meeting  religion — a  religion  that  makes 
men  realize  that  if  there  is  a  heaven,  there 
must  also  of  necessity  be  a  hell — a  religion 
that  makes  a  man  realize  that  every  act  is 
recorded  on  his  own  conscience  and  that 
though  it  may  slumber  it  can  never  die — a 
religion  that  makes  an  employer  under- 
stand that  if  he  is  unfair  to  his  employees 
and  pays  them  less  than  fair  wages,  meas- 
ured by  his  ability  and  their  efficiency  and 
zeal,  he  is  a  robber — a  religion  that  makes 
an  employee  know  that  if  he  does  not  give 
full  and  efficient  service,  he  too  is  a  robber 
— a  religion  that  makes  a  man  realize  that 
by  driving  too  hard  a  bargain  with  his 
servant,  his  employee,  his  merchant,  he  can 
be  just  as  much  a  profiteer  as  the  seller  or 
producer  who  swindles  by  false  weight, 
false  packing  or  false  charges — a  religion 
that  will  teach  church  members  to  con- 
tribute to  the  extent  of  their  ability  to  the 
support  of  religion  and  that  compels  them 
to  recognize  that  if  they  are  paying  their 
pastor  less  than  a  living  salary,  they  are 
robbing  God  and  man  alike.  In  short  we 
need  a  revival  of  religion  which  will  make 
every  man  and  woman  strive  in  every  act 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM       121 

of  life  to  do  that  which  on  the  great  judg- 
ment day  they  will  wish  that  they  had  done, 
as  with  soul  uncovered  they  stand  before 
the  judgment  seat  of  the  Eternal.  In  the 
Golden  Rule  followed  in  the  fullness  of  the 
spirit  of  this  kind  of  religion,  there  would 
be  found  a  solution  for  every  business  trou- 
ble; there  would  be  created  friendship  be- 
tween employer  and  employee ;  capital  and 
labor  would  work  in  harmony  and  with 
efficiency,  efficiency  for  the  capital  and  effi- 
ciency for  the  labor,  with  profit  to  both. 
It  is  not  merely  in  the  chanting  of  hymns 
here  or  in  the  world  to  come,  but  it 
is  in  the  recognition  and  full  application 
by  rich  and  poor,  by  learned  and  unlearned, 
that  each  is  indeed  his  brother's  keeper, 
that  we  can  bring  this  country  and  the 
world  back  to  safety.  A  nation-wide  ac- 
ceptance of  this,  the  only  true  religion  in 
action,  would  bring  business  peace  and 
world  peace  where  there  is  now  turmoil, 
and  men  would  then  cease  to  seek  to  gain 
their  ends  by  lawless  immorality." 

Mr.  Herbert  C.  Hoover  recently  spoke 
a  word  of  similar  meaning.  "What  is 
needed,"  he  said,  "is  what  for  want  of  a 


122         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

better  term  I  would  call  a  spiritual  revival. 
Somehow  and  by  some  means  the  sense  of 
service  that  dominated  the  allied  peoples 
must  be  revived. ' ' l 

Can  any  one,  seeing  the  world  as  it  is  to- 
day, read  such  words  and  not  be  stirred  in 
mind  and  heart?  Here  are  the  profound 
convictions  from  men  in  the  world — a 
world  in  trouble — that  the  present-day 
need  is  religion,  and  that  the  Church  ought 
to  meet  the  need.  But  how  can  it  measure 
to  the  magnitude  of  the  demand  if  people 
who  believe  in  religion  only  wish  the 
Church  well  and  do  not  help  it  by  their 
presence  to  do  well? 

What  a  chance  to  serve  the  nation! 
What  a  challenge  for  the  spiritual  slacker ! 
If  not  aroused  now,  who  can  forecast  the 
future?  Has  he  regard  for  his  own  chil- 
dren? Religion  is  the  great  need  of  to- 
day. 

5.  The  new  patriotism  not  only  includes 
support  and  promotion  of  morality  and  re- 
ligion, but  also  stands  for  economy.  It 
ought  to  be  a  badge  of  honor  to-day  to  wear 

i  Congregationctiist   and   Advance,    October    16,    1919, 
.  521. 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM       123 

old  clothes,  and  to  live  simply  rather 
than  extravagantly.  When  James  Russell 
Lowell  was  married  economy  was  a  stern 
necessity  with  him  as  with  many  others  of 
that  time.  Men  of  vision  believed  economy 
necessary  also  for  the  general  welfare. 
"A  Do  Without  Club"  was  organized,  of 
which  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lowell  were  members. 
To  keep  a  dinner  engagement  one  evening 
shortly  after  they  were  married,  they 
walked  four  miles  across  the  city  of  Bos- 
ton that  they  might  save  the  cost  of  car- 
riage hire. 

With  the  present  under  production  and 
high  cost  of  living  ought  we  to  have  another 
"Do  Without  Club"?  One  pathway  to 
improved  conditions  is  self-denial,  saving 
and  thrift. 

"Extravagance  and  display  have  been 
prime  causes  of  unrest  of  the  less  fortu- 
nate. Reckless  spending  on  self-indulg- 
ence has  too  often  fanned  the  flames  of 
discontent.  The  constitutional  right  to 
private  property  is  often  so  abused  as  to 
be  inconsistent  with  that  other  constitu- 
tional provision,  '  the  general  welfare. '  It 
is  possible  to  stand  firmly  on  the  right  to 


124         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

private  property  and  at  the  same  time  in- 
terpret that  right  for  the  benefit  of  others 
as  well  as  self.  If  we  are  to  rescue  our- 
selves from  our  present  state  we  must  prac- 
tice economy  both  personally  and  publicly. 
The  national  Congress  must  set  the  ex- 
ample and  the  people  must  follow.  Al- 
ready there  is  talk  of  another  bond  issue 
on  top  of  the  $24,000,000,000  already  issued 
between  April,  1917,  and  October,  1919.  A 
deficit  of  more  than  $3,000,000,000  at  the 
end  of  this  fiscal  year  stares  the  federal 
government  in  the  face.  How  is  this  deficit 
to  be  met  except  by  bonds  or  by  higher 
taxes?  Already  the  people  have  been  un- 
able to  absorb  the  war  bonds  issued.  The 
banks  are  carrying  several  billions  partly 
paid  for,  while  the  Federal  Reserve  banks 
are  understood  to  be  carrying  war  paper 
amounting  to  $1,380,000,000.  Prices  are 
abnormal  largely  because  of  excessive  is- 
sues of  credit  money  and  the  issue  of  im- 
mense quantities  of  government  bonds. 
Both  paper  money  and  bonds  are  in  the 
last  analysis  debts — liabilities  of  the  peo- 
ple which  the  people  must  pay.  How  does 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM       125 

a  private  citizen  in  a  financial  hole  manage 
to  settle  ?  By  economy,  by  saving.  If  the 
people  ever  expect  to  pay  their  public  debts 
they  must  practice  thrift  and  return  to  the 
old-fashioned  rule  of  economy.  If  we 
would  escape  being  called  a  nation  of 
'spendthrifts'  and  *  extravagant  wasters' 
we  must  restore  to  our  vocabulary  and  our 
practical  activity  the  word  'economy.' 
Let  that  word  be  written  on  the  door  of 
every  palace  as  well  as  of  every  more 
humble  abode.  It  is  the  key  to  industrial 
content  and  financial  safety. ' ' 1 

6.  Present-day  patriotism  must  also  be 
intelligent.  This  fact  has  been  too  clearly 
demonstrated  to  require  word  of  confirma- 
tion. But  we  must  remember  the  fact! 
*  *  The  ultimate  foundation  of  every  State, ' ' 
says  Seeley, ' '  is  a  way  of  thinking. ' '  Sus- 
picion and  distrust  within  a  nation  lead  to 
division,  suffering  conditions,  and  often  to 
violence.  And  suspicion  and  distrust  of 
one  another  among  nations  usually  lead  to 
war.  For  enduring  peace  among  men  and 
nations  there  must  be  enlightenment,  and 

York  Herald,  editorial,  Oct.  12,  1919. 


126         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

the  implanting  in  the  minds  of  men  right 
ideas  and  principles  as  a  foundation  on 
which  to  build  the  new  social  order  of  jus- 
tice. 

7.  Present-day  patriotism  must  also 
stand  for  1000  per  cent  pure  Americanism. 
There  must  be  no  divided  allegiance. 
This  is  not  selfish.  ''A  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand. ' '  And  only  as 
we  make  America  strong,  can  it  serve  the 
world.  Insistence  on  absolute  loyalty  to 
our  country,  however,  must  not  prejudice 
against  naturalized  citizens  or  citizens  of 
"foreign"  descent.  It  is  a  glory  of  Amer- 
ica that  it  has  had  welcome  for  people  of 
almost  every  tongue  and  land  of  the  known 
world,  who  have  here  lived  and  worked 
harmoniously  side  by  side,  an  example  of 
brotherhood  and  democracy  to  all  human- 
kind. But  certain  disloyal  have  been 
found  within  our  gate,  and  certain  others 
such  as  the  bolshevists  and  syndicalists  are 
seeking  to  foment  unrest  and  incite  to  vio- 
lence. Either  one  stands  for  1000  per  cent 
pure  Americanism  or  one  does  not.  Either 
one  is  wholly  for  the  stars  and  stripes  or 
one  is  not.  Loyalty  admits  no  compromise. 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM       127 

Such,  I  believe,  is  the  new  patriotism. 
It  is  not  internationalism,  not  materialism, 
not  the  favoritism  of,  OT  rule  by,  a  class. 
The  new  patriotism  first  of  all  affirms  the 
principle  of  interdependence,  which  means 
that  our  lives  are  mutually  dependent, 
bound  up  together.  Second,  it  stands  for 
constructive  liberalism,  which  works  for 
the  common  well-being  and  happiness  of  all 
as  opposed  to  reactionary  policy  or  the 
methods  of  bolshevism.  Third,  it  stands 
for  merciful  helpfulness  when  help  is 
needed  and  ought  to  be  given.  Fourth,  it 
affirms  that  truly  loyal  Americans  in  these 
crucial  post-war  times  must  support  and 
promote  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  of  the 
nation.  Fifth,  it  stands  for  economy,  be- 
lieving that  one  inescapable  pathway  to 
improved  economic  conditions  is  self- 
denial,  saving,  and  thrift.  Sixth,  it  de- 
clares that  present-day  patriotism  must  be 
intelligent ;  and,  lastly,  the  new  patriotism 
stands  for  1000  per  cent  pure  American- 
ism, with  undivided  devotion  to  one  flag  — 

' '  Flag  of  the  free  heart 's  hope  and  home ! 
Forever  float  that  Standard  Sheet ! 


128         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

Where  breathes  the  foe  but  falls  before  us, 

"With  Freedom 's  soil  beneath  our  feet, 

And  Freedom 's  banner  streaming  o  'er  us  ? "  * 

I  have  called  this  the  new  patriotism.  In 
the  highest  and  truest  sense  it  is  also  the 
old  patriotism,  for  it  includes  that  which 
is  fundamental  to  American  democracy, 
and  is  the  patriotism  that  will  continue  so 
long  as  democracy  endures. 

i  Joseph  Rodman  Drake,  The  American  Flag. 


V 

VITAL   MESSAGES   OF   BELIGION    FOB   TO-DAY 

WITH  recent  great  world  changes  new  ideas 
have  come  rushing  into  the  minds  of  men 
like  a  loosened  flood,  looking  to  radical 
changes  even  in  the  field  of  religious 
thought  and  work. 

When  that  returned  Y  worker,  a  clergy- 
man, stood  in  an  American  pulpit,  and  de- 
clared his  hope  that  the  whole  program  of 
Church  work  and  preaching  would  be 
changed,  what  did  he  mean  I  I  do  not 
know.  I  heard  the  remark,  spoken  with 
intensity  and  evident  sincerity.  But  along 
with  accompanying  criticisms,  I  did  not 
hear  a  single  constructive  conclusion.  Is 
not  this  typical  of  much  similar  comment 
on  religion  and  the  Church? — positive, 
helpful  suggestion  is  wanting.  Criticisms 
have  been  so  numerous  that  multitudes  of 
people  are  bewildered,  and  thousands  are 
asking:  ''What  has  been  the  effect  of 
the  war  on  the  attitude  of  men  toward 
churches,  creeds,  and  religion?  What 

129 


130         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

messages  are  vital  to  the  needs  of  the  pres- 
ent hour?" 

Undoubtedly,  this  is  a  time  when  the 
Church  must  take  account  of  the  things  of 
which  men  are  thinking  and  of  the  new 
world  in  which  they  are  living, — only  so 
can  it  gain  "the  point  of  contact"  with 
them.  Undoubtedly,  this  is  a  time  when 
the  religious  teacher  ought  to  bring  "forth 
out  of  his  treasure  things  new  and  old," 
only  so  can  he  speak  to  present  needs. 
Certain  apparent  facts  light  the  way. 
Our  age  in  these  post-war  times  is  marked 
by  the  resultant  of  a  world  cataclysm, 
political  changes  and  social  upheavals. 
How  far  the  changes  will  go  and  their  full 
influence  upon  religion,  no  man  can  say. 
But  certain  large  characteristics  of  the 
ethical  and  religious  life  of  to-day  and  of 
the  attitude  of  the  minds  of  men  toward 
religion  have  come  into  view,  just  as  great 
continents  that  once  lifted  themselves  from 
the  seas  "took  form  and  content."  Must 
not  these  characteristics  determine  the  em- 
phasis in  religious  teaching,  if  the  Church 
is  to  fulfill  its  ministry  to  this  age  ?  What 
are  those  characteristics? 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY       131 

First  of  all,  I  believe  we  may  affirm  that 
the  people  of  to-day  are  thinking  in  the 
terms  of  reality.  Men  in  the  trenches 
have  had  to  do  with  reality,  with  the  hor- 
rors of  war  and  the  ravages  of  death,  and 
some  of  the  men  have  had  to  do  with  suffer- 
ings seven-fold  worse  than  death.  Men  in 
the  camps  at  home  and  abroad  looked  for- 
ward to  like  experiences.  In  imagination 
and  in  dedication  they  had  literally  given 
their  bodies  to  the  cross  of  service  and,  if 
need  be,  to  the  agonies  of  supreme  sacri- 
fice. They  were  part  of  a  real  war  and 
had  to  do  with  a  real  world.  When  in 
Church,  the  Y  hut,  or  religious  service  out 
under  the  stars  in  battle  torn  fields  or  on 
quiet  hillsides  beneath  waving  branches  of 
over-shadowing  forests,  they  had  heart 
only  for  the  realities  of  religion.  Speak- 
ers who  unwittingly  tried  substitutes: 
humorous  stories,  platitudes,  vapid  an- 
ecdotes, or  philosophy,  could  not  obtain 
hearing.  Under  such  preaching,  men 
would  withdraw  from  a  service.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  story  of  the  cross,  the  life 
and  teaching  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and 
other  great  vital  messages  interested  the 


132         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

men  and  held  their  attention.  Such  is  the 
testimony  that  has  come  to  me  from  scores 
of  sources  in  my  effort  to  obtain  first-hand 
information  on  the  results  of  religious 
work  in  the  war. 

The  experiences  in  religious  war  work 
at  home  has  been  practically  the  same. 
Mr.  Bernard  Iddings  Bell  has  given  valua- 
ble data  obtained  by  him  when  acting  as 
civilian  aide  to  the  Senior  Chaplain  at 
Great  Lakes  Naval  Training  Station.  For 
a  year  of  his  time,  he  superintended  all 
chaplains'  work  in  "Detention,"  where  the 
men  spent  the  first  three  weeks  of  their 
stay,  and  took  a  religion  registration  of 
nearly  every  man  who  came  in.  Mr.  Bell's 
records  show  that  he  gave  the  chaplains' 
instruction  on  religion  and  morals  two 
hundred  and  forty-seven  times  to  groups 
composed  of  eighty-one  thousand  men. 
Mr.  Bell  "looked  up"  men  of  his  own  com- 
munion, and  too  knew  of  the  experiences 
of  other  workers,  pastors  and  chaplains,  in 
conversation  with  large  numbers  of  men. 
In  speaking  of  this  personal  touch  with 
"our  boys,"  Mr.  Bell  says:  "It  is  inter- 
esting to  note  what  are  some  of  the  things 


RELIGION  FOB  TO-DAY       133 

which  they  do  not  mention  as  alienating 
young  men  [from  Churches].  Rarely  does 
one  hear  that  the  ancient  creeds  are  diffi- 
cult to  believe.  Apparently  the  healthy, 
simple  man  in  the  street  shares  little  of  the 
intellectual  doubtings  of  the  musty  browser 
among  books.  Few  cite  the  selfish  inad- 
equacy of  a  faith  which  bids  men  save 
themselves  from  hell.  That  quaint  and 
fearsome  Calvinistic  motive,  so  bothersome 
to  Mr.  Wells  and  Judge  Lindsey,  has,  ap- 
parently, save  in  a  few  rural  neighbor- 
hoods of  the  Southwest,  never  been  pre- 
sented to  most  young  men  of  this  genera- 
tion. The  disunity  of  Christendom  bothers 
almost  no  one.  Partly  with  regret  it  must 
be  said  that  apparently  the  need  for  a  re- 
united Church  is  felt  at  present  chiefly 
by  the  clergy.  Most  of  these  young  men 
had  no  fault  whatever  to  find  with  the 
churches  as  such.  All  their  criticism  was 
leveled  at  church  members.  They  had  a 
notion  that  they  did  rather  like  Christian- 
ity— little  as  they  know  of  it.  ...  They 
were  not  irreligious.  They  were  patheti- 
cally ready  for  spiritual  leadership.  They 
threw  no  bitter  slurs  at  the  faith  that  has 


134         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

made  saints  and  heroes  of  men  like  them 
in  the  ages  past.  One  could  not  help  but 
feel  that  many  of  them  might  become 
simple  and  happy  Christian  men,  and  that 
their  younger  brothers  might  never  drift 
away  at  all,  if  only  Christians  might  with 
penitence  reconsecrate  themselves,  clergy- 
men and  people,  to  definite  preaching  of 
the  fundamental  faith,  social  worship  of  an 
objective  Jesus,  quiet  fellowship  in  devo- 
tion, humble  seeking  to  live  a  Christlike 
life,  and  unaffected  utterance  of  the  faith 
that  is  in  them."  x 

Testimony  could  be  multiplied  showing 
that  the  men  in  the  war,  at  home  and 
abroad,  having  to  do  with  stern  reality, 
could,  in  the  matter  of  religion,  be  inter- 
ested only  by  the  vital  things  of  religion. 
Their  temper,  I  believe,  is  the  temper  of 
the  present  age.  A  people  who  have  been 
in  the  throes  of  a  world  war,  and  who  now 
are  undergoing  consequent  sufferings,  and 
who,  often  bewildered,  are  facing  intricate 
social  and  world  problems,  are  not  ready 
to  give  hearing  to  philosophy  of  rational- 

i  Atlantic  Monthly,  September,  1919,  pp.  402  ff. 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY       135 

ism  or  the  philosophy  of  religion,  much 
less  to  the  trappings  of  denominationalism. 
It  is  not  that  the  people  believe  or  that 
others  of  us  believe  that  the  millennium 
was  effected  by  the  war  or  that  hearts  were 
greatly  purified  thereby.  The  war  may 
have  had  a  good  spiritual  effect  on  those 
men  who  were  " baptized  with  fire,"  which 
seems  to  have  been  the  impression  of  ob- 
servers like  Donald  Hankey  and  Ian  Hay. 
But  all  testimony  is  that  in  the  main  our 
boys  remained  essentially  as  they  were. 
However,  the  striking  characteristic 
brought  to  light  is  that  this  present  age 
which  has  had  to  do  with  grim,  stern  real- 
ity will  give  hearing  in  matters  of  religion, 
if  at  all,  only  to  the  real,  vital  things  of 
religion.  Truth  has  chance  for  a  hearing, 
— the  truth  that  is  fundamental  and  es- 
sential to  meeting  the  needs  of  the  souls  of 
men,  where  they  are  and  as  they  are.  The 
world  is  not  large  enough  now  even  for  re- 
ligion and  science  to  quarrel. 

The  lesson  is  of  inestimable  value.  The 
discussions  of  theology  (which  are  not  to 
be  despised),  the  affirming  of  a  creed,  or 


136         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

the  assertion  that  the  Book  of  Jonah  is  his- 
tory or  that  it  is  a  parable  will  have  no 
more  weight  in  reaching  the  people  of  the 
present  age  than  the  one  time  discussion 
of  how  many  angels  can  dance  on  the  end 
of  a  needle  or  how  many  buttons  ought  to 
be  placed  on  an  ecclesiastical  garment. 
The  present  age  of  reality  can  be  reached 
only  by  the  vital  messages  of  religion,  in- 
terpreted in  terms  of  present  life.  If  the 
Book  of  Jonah  has  such  a  message — and  it 
has — why  not  give  the  message?  declare  its 
truth,  not  waste  time  quibbling  about  the 
vehicle  of  truth,  be  it  history  or  parable. 
I  cite  this  illustration  of  the  Book  of 
Jonah,  as  I  believe  the  illustration  sugges- 
tive of  the  thinking  of  men  and  women 
whose  attitude  is  not  that  of  indifference  to 
vital  piety  but  rather  impatience  with  other 
than  the  vital  things  of  Christianity. 
Truth  is  fundamental.  Truth  is  essential. 
Truth  is  the  great  eternal  changeless  real- 
ity, and  bears  its  own  ear  marks.  Truth 
does  not  need  to  be  labeled  "  theological, " 
or  "denominational."  It  can  stand  on  its 
own  legs,  and  make  its  own  way  if  not 
clogged  by  platitudes  and  "vain  repeti- 


EELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY       137 

tions."  Truth  is  power.  "Ye  shall  know 
the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you 
free."1 

Bigotry,  dogmatism,  denominationalism, 
cannot  feed  the  souls  of  men.  If  a  man  ask 
bread,  why  give  him  a  stone?  This  is  no 
wild  outcry  against  creeds  and  denomina- 
tions. Everybody  has  his  creed — of  some 
sort.  The  word  credo,  i  BELIEVE,  is 
significant.  Creeds,  which  are  but  the  sys- 
tematized statements  of  religious  beliefs, 
will  doubtless  have  continued  place  in  as- 
sociations of  religious  people.  And  for 
such  groups  denominations  will  have  value 
for  convenience  in  worship  and  work.  All 
persons  in  going  into  a  place  of  worship 
prefer  to  know  that  they  are  going  into  one 
place  rather  than  into  another:  into  a 
^Christian  church,  Mohammedan  mosque, 
or  Jewish  temple.  But  once  there,  they 
can  be  influenced  only  by  uplifting 
worship  and  a  vital  spiritualizing  service. 
If  that  does  not  mean  a  "meeting"  funda- 
mentally dry,  does  it  imply  the  sensational? 
Believing  that  it  does,  certain  speakers 
have  copied  Eev.  "Billy"  Sunday's  oddi- 

i  John  VIII.  32. 


138        THE  GREAT  MENACE 

ties:  one  leg  gestures,  grimaces,  and  ex- 
travagant utterances,  but  so  have  copied 
only  the  accidentals  of  Mr.  Sunday,  whose 
power  is  his  spirit  and  message.  The 
most  sensational  thing  that  certain  speak- 
ers could  do,  would  be  to  say  something,  to 
speak  a  message  instead  of  platitudes,  to 
declare  real  things  out  of  a  real  spiritual 
experience  instead  of  repeating  fables  and 
insipid  anecdotes. 

The  real  message  to  the  real  world  must 
have,  at  least,  flashes  of  inspiration :  utter- 
ances that  come  with  freshness  and  force, 
when  hearers  instinctively  feel  "Thus 
saith  the  Lord."  Inspiration  is  closed 
only  to  the  life  that  is  closed  to  it.  The 
Christ  said,  "I  have  yet  many  things  to 
say  unto  you,  but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now. 
Howbeit  when  he  the  Spirit  of  truth,  is 
come,  he  will  guide  you  into  all  truth. ' '  * 
Living  on  the  high  plane  of  religion-reality 
where  the  voice  of  God  is  audible  one  will 
have  courage  to  be  one's  self,  to  trust  one's 
own  thinking  as  enlightened  by  the  Spirit 
of  truth, — which,  I  believe,  is  the  divine 
method  for  a  teacher  in  bringing  "forth 

i  John  XVI.  12-13. 


RELIGION  FOE  TO-DAY        139 

out  of  his  treasure  things  new  and  old." 
So  will  one  minister  of  the  vital  things  of 
religion  to  the  people  of  the  present  age 
who  are  thinking  in  the  terms  of  reality. 
It  follows.  I  believe,  that  any  man  who 
hopes  that  the  whole  preaching  program  of 
the  Church  will  be  changed,  overlooks  the 
fact  that  the  fundamentals  of  the  Christian 
religion  do  not  change ;  overlooks  that  God 
in  the  nature  of  His  being  and  man  in 
the  nature  of  his  being  remain  the  same. 

We  cannot  conceive  of  God  as  other  than 
a  " constant  quantity"  and  a  constant  qual- 
ity. * '  He  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day  and 
forever,"1  constant  in  His  love,  wisdom, 
mercy  and  power.  No  man  can  think 
otherwise ;  nor  would  any  one  be  satisfied 
with  a  changeable  Infinite  Being,  or  pay 
homage  to  Him  as  Creator,  God  over  all. 

Those  persons  who  urge  a  complete 
change  in  religious  teaching  must  have 
overlooked  also  that  man  is  even  yet  body 
and  spirit;  and  too  must  have  overlooked 
the  constancy  of  the  constituent  elements 
of  his  spiritual  nature,  variously  mentioned 
as  emotions,  will,  intellect,  purpose,  or 

i  Heb.  XIII.  8. 


140         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

again,  by  the  words  heart,  soul,  mind. 
The  terms  or  words  are  those  of  conveni- 
ence to  represent,  the  psychologist  would 
say,  "  different  aspects  of  one  substantive 
entity."  Of  the  facts  of  the  inner  spirit- 
ual man:  thought,  desires,  feelings,  striv- 
ings, and  yearning  to  know  God  and  to 
come  into  right  relations  with  God,  we  all 
do  know.  The  constituent  spiritual  ele- 
ments, though  varying  in  degree  of  de- 
velopment, are  characteristic  of  man,  and 
by  them  he  is  differentiated  and  rec- 
ognized ;  and  these  same  spiritual  elements 
plainly  show  why  "man  is  incurably  re- 
ligious,"— a  statement  that  is  substan- 
tiated by  observation,  consciousness,  and 
experience.  The  great  quest  of  men  has 
been  to  know  God,  to  love  and  be  loved  by 
Him,  and  to  serve  Him.  And  such  will  be 
the  endeavor  of  men  in  the  future.  True, 
the  finer,  nobler  part  of  one 's  spiritual  na- 
ture, the  attempt  of  the  finite  to  hold  com- 
munion with  the  Infinite,  may  be  dwarfed 
through  abuse  or  disuse  by  individuals, 
groups,  or  generations,  who  may  fall  into 
thick  darkness  like  that  of  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, yet  the  fact  remains  that  man  is  man, 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY       141 

with  a  spiritual  nature,  spiritual  needs, 
and,  at  least  at  times,  with  yearnings  for 
God.  Sin  to  men  is  not  a  theory,  but  a 
fact ;  and  all  who  think  cry  out  for  redemp- 
tion. The  need,  therefore,  for  certain  vital 
religious  truths  continues. 

It  may  be  a  little  old  fashioned  to  speak 
of  "a  world  of  sin,"  but  men  and  nations 
have  had  a  new  awakening  to  the  import 
of  that  fact.  And  the  hope  of  the  world  is 
not  in  the  Church  becoming  worldly — not 
so  can  it  "overcome  the  world" — but  a 
spiritual  ministry.  Nothing  can  do  the 
work  of  religion  but  religion.  If  ever  the 
ideals  and  habits  of  people  are  to  be  spirit- 
ualized, it  must  be  by  spiritual  means. 
Therefore,  the  supreme  mission  of  the 
Church  is  spiritual.  With  that  mission 
there  ought  to  be  ability  and  sufficient  gen- 
erosity to  recognize  the  reality  of  religion 
in  men  whose  lives  are  religious,  though 
deterred  by  modesty  or  imposed  ecclesiasti- 
cal difficulty  from  acknowledging  it.  Dr. 
Henry  C.  King,  President  of  Oberlin  Col- 
lege, is  credited  with  having  said,  "If  we 
take  the  witness  of  the  life  against  the  wit- 
ness of  the  lips  when  the  witness  of  the 


142         THE  GREAT  MENACE 

life  is  wrong  and  the  witness  of  the  lips  is 
right,  we  ought  to  take  the  witness  of  the 
life  against  the  witness  of  the  lips  when  the 
witness  of  the  life  is  right  and  the  witness 
of  the  lips  is  wrong. ' '  This  is  but  another 
way  of  saying  that  if  we  disregard  a  man 's 
religious  confession  when  he  is  living  an 
irreligious  life,  we  ought  to  disregard  a 
man's  failure  of  religious  confession  when 
he  is  living  a  positively  religious  life. 
Surely,  much  will  have  been  gained  when 
in  the  spirit  of  the  age  emphasis  is  placed 
on  religious  reality,  as  well  as  on  the  real- 
ity of  religion. 

A  second  characteristic  of  the  life  of  to- 
day is  a  spirit  of  service.  Our  country  was 
united  in  war  work.  There  was  a  passion 
for  service.  All  insisted  on  doing  some- 
thing. Aged  men  would  knit,  when  with 
but  a  spark  of  life  they  could  do  nothing 
else.  Children  caught  the  enthusiasm  and 
saved  pennies  for  liberty  bonds  and  war 
saving  stamps.  Canteens  multiplied. 
The  Eed  Cross  reached  out  its  hand  of  help 
everywhere.  Our  noble  women  responded 
to  every  need,  giving  of  themselves,  as  fa- 
thers and  brothers  gave  of  themselves 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY       143 

without  stint.  We  all  were  thinking  of 
"our  boys"  in  the  war  and  of  the  im- 
periled cause  of  democracy.  All  felt  the 
joy  and  saw  the  beauty  of  service.  And 
therein  was  disclosed  the  glory  of  Jesus, 
who  said,  "I  am  among  you  as  he  that 
serveth."  *  A  church  that  does  not  serve, 
that  does  not  minister  to  the  needs  of  the 
present  age,  will  have  no  vital  touch  with 
its  people,  nor  can  it  interpret  the  Christ 
to  their  understanding.  The  ministry  of 
the  Church  must  be  to  the  whole-man: 
body,  mind  and  spirit ;  and  must  look  to  the 
betterment  of  his  environment  and  make 
secure  his  opportunities  for  self  realiza- 
tion and  improvement.  Therefore,  its  ef- 
fort will  be  not  alone  to  save  drunkards, 
paupers,  and  prostitutes,  but  as  well  to 
abolish  institutions  of  infamy  and  the 
cruel  conditions  of  living  and  of  labor 
that  produce  a  helpless  and  degenerate 
class. 

Good  things  must  be  put  in  place  of  the 
bad.  Such  work  in  cities  is  on  its  way. 
The  country  has  its  needs.  Fifty  million 
people  in  the  United  States,  one  half  of  its 

iLuke  XXII.   27. 


144        THE  GREAT  MENACE 

population,  live  in  communities  of  less  than 
2,500  inhabitants.1  Preventable  diseases 
exact  heavy  toll  in  many  country  districts. 
Churches  through  reasonable  cooperation 
with  Red  Cross  workers  could  ultimately 
effect  hygienic  and  sanitary  conditions  that 
would  eliminate  much  suffering  and  largely 
reduce  rural  mortality. 

The  merciful  work  of  Juvenile  Courts, 
a  county  usually  being  the  geographical 
unit  of  a  Court,  for  dependent,  neglected, 
and  delinquent  children,  ought  to  be  under- 
stood and  helped  by  all  who  love  the  little 
child.  And  such  work  ought  to  be  ad- 
vocated and  instituted  in  those  States  that 
have  not  yet  undertaken  it.  The  Juvenile 
Court  laws  of  Maryland  have  been  widely 
commended  and  drawn  upon  as  ideal  laws. 

Live  people  demand  an  occasional  good 
time.  Here  is  opportunity  for  churches  to 
provide  recreation  that  is  re-creation. 
The  work  can  be  started  with  a  place  for 
meeting  and  planned  entertainment,  plac- 
ing as  large  responsibility  as  possible  on 
various  individuals.  This  is  something 
practical  for  keeping  young  people  from 

i  M.  Katherine  Bennett,  The  Path  of  Labor,  p.  4. 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY       145 

questionable  places,  companionships,  and 
amusements.  Children  should  be  simi- 
larly provided  for.  To  this  end  why  not 
utilize  school-houses  and  school  grounds? 

There  are  many  things  that  churches  can 
do  in  community  service,  yet  in  the  face  of 
crying  needs  hundreds  of  country  churches 
are  doing  little  or  nothing.  * '  Son  of  man, 
can  these  bones  live?"  To  be  in  harmony 
with  the  spirit  of  the  present  age,  churches 
must  preach  the  message  and  have  the 
spirit  of  service. 

As  a  third  characteristic  of  the  times,  I 
would  mention  its  high  value  of  personal 
worth  of  character.  The  world  honors  its 
heroes.  We  bow  in  tribute  before  the 
graves  of  our  American  sons  in  our  own 
home  land,  or  where 

"In  Flanders  fields  the  poppies  grow 
Between  the  crosses,  row  on  row. ' ' 

And  our  boys  who  have  returned  home, 
we  would  crown  with  the  immortelles  of 
gratitude  and  love. 

There  has  gone  out  through  all  the  land 
a  new  appreciation  of  character.  Some  of 
the  boys  may  not  be  saints,  but  they  have 


their  opinions  of  a  people  who  profess  one 
thing  and  do  another.  *  *  The  people  of  the 
world"  have  only  contempt  for  a  people 
who  do  the  things  which  they  ought  not  to 
do,  and  leave  undone  the  things  which  they 
ought  to  do.  That  sort  of  thing  brings  dis- 
repute on  the  Church.  To  again  quote 
Mr.  Bell,  though  "our  boys"  had  the  no- 
tion that  they  did  rather  like  Christianity, 
"they  were  sure  that  they  did  not  like 
Christians  at  all.  Their  feeling  came  to 
this  in  most  cases — that,  if  Christian  peo- 
ple would  only  endeavor  to  be  Christians, 
the  ordinary  young  fellow  would  like  noth- 
ing better  than  to  come  along  and  try  it 
with  them;  and  that,  if  Christians  wanted 
them  to  be  interested,  those  Christians 
might  well  stop  criticizing  the  Church  and 
start  criticizing  themselves. ' '  * 

If  any  fact  is  plain,  it  is  that  emphasis  in 
Christian  teaching  to-day  must  be  on  char- 
acter rather  than  on  ritual,  on  obedience  to 
moral  law  rather  than  on  confession  of  a 
creed.  Not  what  a  man  professes  or  does 
not  profess,  but  rather  what  a  man  is  at 
heart,  in  "the  purity  of  his  private  life,  the 

.    404. 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY       147 

justice  and  generosity  of  his  relations  with 
his  fellows,  the  quickness  of  his  sympa- 
thies, the  sincerity  of  his  convictions,  the 
integrity  of  his  word  and  bond — this  is  the 
true  test  of  religion. ' ' x  And  this  must  be 
the  reiterated  message  of  the  Church  if  it 
is  to  strengthen  its  hold  upon  the  people 
of  to-day  who  have  learned  to  value  men  for 
what  they  are. 

A  fourth  characteristic  of  the  present  age 
is  a  growing  sense  of  brotherhood.  We 
are  awakening  to  the  fact  that  as  a  people 
and  as  nations  we  are  bound  up  together, 
"and  whether  one  member  suffer,  all  the 
members  suffer  with  it;  or  one  member 
be  honored,  all  the  members  rejoice  with 
it."2  There  is  "one  God  and  Father  of 
all,  who  is  above  all,  and  through  all,  and 
in  you  all. ' ' 3  And  God  ' '  hath  made  of 
one  blood  all  nations  of  men  for  to  dwell 
on  all  the  face  of  the  earth. " 4  Is  it  pos- 
sible for  one  great  spiritual  kinship  to  bind 
together  men  and  nations  in  the  one  great 
family!  Is  it  possible  to  see  in  every  crea- 

1  John  Haynes  Holmes,  Religion  for  To-day,  pp.  14-15. 

2  I  Cor.  XII.  26. 
s  Eph.  VI.  6. 

*  Acts  XVII.  26. 


148        THE  GREAT  MENACE 

ture,  whatever  his  race  or  language,  an  ac- 
credited child  of  this  "one  God  and  Fa- 
ther of  all"?  Unless  the  Church  believes 
this,  and  works  in  the  Spirit  of  it,  then 
verily  the  end  of  things  draweth  nigh. 

Men  will  differ  and  be  different,  with 
varying  interests  and  varying  ways  of  ex- 
pressing what  verily  they  believe.  And 
those  ways  constantly  affirm  or  deny  that 
"one  is  your  Master,  even  Christ,  and  all 
ye  are  brethren. ' ' *  Other  men  feel  as  we 
feel,  love  as  we  love,  hope  as  we  hope,  have 
aspirations,  failures,  sins,  yearnings  after 
God  and  the  redeemed  life,  just  like  our- 
selves. If  some  do  not,  then  greater 
should  be  our  concern  for  "the  one  that  is 
lost."  The  welcome  of  the  members  of 
a  true  church  is  to  all,  whom  we  hail  as 
kin,  brothers,  and  comrades.  Such  is  the 
spirit  that  the  Church  must  exemplify,  if 
it  would  win  the  people  of  to-day,  who  have 
awakened  to  a  growing  sense  of  the  bond 
of  brotherhood. 

A  fifth  characteristic  of  the  present  age 
is  a  deepening  conviction  of  the  necessity 
of  justice.  The  very  havoc  wrought  by  in- 

i  Matt.  xxni.  8. 


BELIGION  FOE  TO-DAY       149 

justice  is  making  the  world  see  with  ever 
more  clearness  that  justice  must  prevail 
or  an  orderly  human  society  cannot  endure. 
And  this  the  Church  must  declare,  must 
continually  declare.  In  an  atmosphere  of 
justice  the  Great  Menace  cannot  live. 

One  more  characteristic  which  may  be 
affirmed  of  the  present  age  is  a  spirit  of 
tolerance.  Many  things  suggest  other- 
wise. Intemperate  speeches  have  been 
made  on  temperance.  The  ' '  song  of  hate, ' ' 
first  sung  in  Germany,  has  been  heard  in 
America.  Protests  of  intolerance  have 
greeted  the  effort  toward  unity  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  and  other 
Protestant  churches  in  America.  Such 
phrases  as  "ecclesiastical  Junkers," 
"spiritual  bastards,"  "the  heel  of  an 
Episcopal  bishop,"  etc.,  are  the  amazing 
utterances  that  have  been  heard.  I  am  not 
an  Episcopalian,  and,  therefore,  cannot  be 
charged  with  prejudice  when  I  say  that  the 
men  who  have  used  such  language  would 
find  stinging  rebuke  in  observing  the  spirit 
of  the  men  who  fought  our  war.  Not  of 
them  was  the  song  of  hate ;  that  is — or  was 
— the  song  of  the  Hun.  Not  of  them  is 


150        THE  GREAT  MENACE 

the  calumny  of  one's  own  who  happens  to 
differ  in  the  formal  expression  of  what 
fundamentally  we  all  believe.  English  sol- 
diers repaired  a  shell  torn  German  ceme- 
tery. On  a  cross  in  that  cemetery  the 
English  soldiers  lettered  the  words: 
* '  Forgive  us  our  trespasses,  as  we  forgive 
those  who  trespass  against  us. ' '  A  French 
officer  said  to  Rev.  Dr.  Crane  of  Boston 
when  in  France  on  war  work  "Unless  we 
are  fighting  for  International  spirit 
( brotherhood ) ,  let 's  quit. ' '  Cardinal  Mer- 
cier  of  Belgium  who  remained  by  his 
suffering  countrymen,  sheltering,  comfort- 
ing and  helping  them,  had  reason,  if  any 
one  had,  for  feelings  of  intolerance  and 
hate.  His  simple  narration  of  the  things 
that  were  done  under  German  occupancy, 
is  an  awful,  damning  indictment  of  Ger- 
man rule.  He  had  seen  his  churches  de- 
stroyed, the  University  of  Louvain  burned, 
his  country  ravaged,  its  people  outraged, 
his  priests  shot;  and  he  himself  was  im- 
prisoned for  days  and  threatened  with 
death.  Yet  Cardinal  Mercier,  though 
bearing  unspeakable  sufferings  with  and 
for  his  people,  said,  "Whatever  may  be  our 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY       151 

sufferings,  we  must  not  show  hatred  to- 
ward those  who  have  inflicted  them." 

A  like  chivalrous  spirit  is  characteristic 
of  our  boys  who  passed  through  the  fires  of 
combat.  It  is  not  that  they  condone 
wrong.  They  hate,  as  do  all  of  us,  the 
atrocities,  cruelties,  and  all  things  repre- 
hensible practiced  by  the  Germans  and 
other  enemy  powers.  Yet,  our  men  who 
fought  the  hardest  and  suffered  the  most 
have  returned  with  charity  in  their  hearts 
and  with  no  words  of  hate  upon  their  lips. 
That  fine  virile  example,  as  every  standard 
of  ethics  known  to  man,  confirms  the  prin- 
ciple that  man  has  no  right  to  harbor 
hatred  toward  any  man,  however  great  an 
offender.  If  people  at  large  have  not  said 
this,  they  have  felt  this  and  have  largely 
lived  it.  Expression  of  intolerance  or 
spirit  of  hatred  is  coup  sur  sporadic. 

When  our  country  went  to  war,  people 
at  once  began  to  work  together  and  to  pull 
together.  As  time  went  on  the  spirit  of 
oneness  in  heart  and  purpose  deepened. 
So  too  in  the  army  and  navy.  Gentile  and 
Jew,  learned  and  unlearned,  the  rich  and 
not-rich,  were  together  in  camp  and  trench, 


152        THE  GREAT  MENACE 

Soldiers,  sailors,  marines,  and  civilians 
felt  the  bond  of  spiritual  kinship, — we  were 
Americans !  Then,  any  mention  of  differ- 
ences in  creed  or  church  was  simply  un- 
thinkable! The  religion  of  intolerance 
was  dead,  and  is  dead  now.  Some  men  are 
slow  in  taking  this  in,  slow  to  respect 
others'  opinions  and  ways;  and  are  cor- 
respondingly free  to  hurl  anathemas  upon 
persons  with  whom  they  do  not  agree. 
What  else  can  we  expect  when  certain 
mountain  and  rural  sections  of  our  coun- 
try are  filled  with  ' '  ministers ' '  who  cannot 
read,  who  do  not  travel,  and  who  know  lit- 
tle of  the  war  or  of  the  times,  and  whose 
conception  of  religion  is  the  ism  of  an  in- 
stitution. How  can  such  ''ministers"  in- 
fluence returning  soldiers  who  have  been 
touched  by  a  tolerant  spirit,  and  who  have 
had  glimpses  of  the  vital  things  of  a  spirit- 
ual religion?  In  parentheses,  I  would  re- 
mark that  the  great  need  of  the  mountains 
and  certain  other  rural  sections  is  religious 
education.  As  for  now,  we  will  take  heart 
because  of  the  spirit  of  tolerance  in  the 
present  age.  We  will  hail  one  another 
as  comrades  and  brothers,  whose  work  is 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY       153 

one:  for  the  kingdom  of  God;  and  whose 
hope  is  one  in  this  "one  God." 

Such,  I  believe,  are  the  great  character- 
istics of  the  present  age :  first,  its  thinking 
in  the  terms  of  reality,  and  demanding, 
therefore,  the  vital  realities  of  religion; 
second,  a  spirit  of  service,  requiring  for 
harmony  therewith  a  ministering  message 
and  work;  third,  a  high  value  of  personal 
worth  or  character,  calling  for  emphasis  on 
"truth  in  the  inward  parts";  fourth,  a 
growing  sense  of  brotherhood,  which  spirit 
religious  people — and  people  if  decent — 
must  exemplify;  fifth,  a  deepening  convic- 
tion of  the  necessity  of  justice,  which  we 
must  continue  to  declare;  and,  sixth,  a 
spirit  of  tolerance  that  has  deepened  into 
a  bond  of  kinship,  which  opens  the  way  for 
the  Church  to  speak  in  like  spirit  to  the 
very  soul  of  the  present  age. 


APPENDIX 
A  CITIZEN'S  WORKING  CREED 

1.  I  believe  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States;  and  pledge  loyalty  to  it. 

2.  I  believe  in  my  country's  flag  and  all  that 
it  symbolizes  of  home  and  love,  freedom  and 
patriotism,   opportunity   and   fraternity,  honor 
and  justice;  and  will  defend  it  as  strongly  as  I 
can  against  enemies  at  home  and  abroad. 

3.  I  believe  in  law  and  order;  and  will  seek 
to  effect  social  or  economic  changes,  and  promote 
the  common  welfare  only  in  harmony  with  the 
orderly  processes  of  law. 

4.  I  believe  in  Government  of,  for  and  by 
the  people;  and  will  oppose  the  effort  of  labor, 
capital,  or  any  other  class  for  the  domination 
of  the  people. 

5.  I  believe  in  man's  "unalienable  rights  of 
life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness" ;  and  I 
will  firmly  oppose  all  revolutionary  movements 
such  as  Bolshevism,  Syndicalism,  I.  W.  W-ism 
or  any  other  movement  that  would  impair  those 
rights  or  otherwise  subvert  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States. 


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